


Not Quite What Was Expected

by Phlinting



Series: A Spark of Hope and the Butterfly Effect [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek Hale, Alpha Stiles Stilinski, BAMF Peter Hale, BAMF Sheriff Stilinski, Canon-Typical Violence, Fix-It, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:54:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 32,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27981111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phlinting/pseuds/Phlinting
Summary: Thanks to a spell, a spark, and a whole lot of belief in time travel they've managed to change the past, but it may have just created more problems than they solved.Also, that stupid "butterfly effect" is about to bite them on the ass...
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Peter Hale/Sheriff Stilinski
Series: A Spark of Hope and the Butterfly Effect [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2041633
Comments: 484
Kudos: 884





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who commented and left kudos for part one. Your support and enthusiasm made writing it so much fun. 
> 
> Here we go with Part Two. It starts where Part one ended.

"They're adoption papers," Peter said, sounding perplexed. "Two sets."

" _Two_ sets?" Noah asked, wondering what sort of not-quite-legal shenanigans he was about to get dragged into. "Twins?"

"One set for Malia Tate," Peter said, placing the near-identical sets of documents side by side on the coffee table. "And one set for Jackson Whittemore."

"Jackson is your son?" Noah asked. "Jackson 'the kanima' is _your_ son?"

Peter flipped through the paperwork until he found the birth certificate. "Yep, I'm listed as his father."

"I guess that explains a lot about the kid's attitude problem."

Peter chuckled quietly. "It really does."

"So the kid was already a werewolf when Derek bit him?"

"Apparently," Peter said, still staring at the paperwork. "In the old timeline Derek became an alpha when he killed me, but he had no one left to guide him or to warn him about things like suppressed shifters. Derek probably thought Jackson was rejecting the bite but in reality he was immune to it in the same way Lydia was."

"Suppressed shifters?" Noah asked.

"It's a term most commonly used for shifters who suffer some type of trauma in their childhood. Being raised by humans would not have helped Jackson at all. It delays the first shift, often with unpleasant side-effects. "

"Like turning into a giant lizard with paralyzing venom?"

"Not often, but yeah," Peter agreed. He glanced back down at the paperwork. "The mother on the birth certificates is the same for both children. It's not the desert wolf's actual name, but I have no doubt that was Talia's doing. Chances are their mother was incapacitated the moment she gave birth. Jackson would have been safe enough but a coyote-shifter's daughters take some of their mother's power when they're born. And, as you well know, Malia's mother wasn't the least bit happy about that."

"I remember," Noah said. It was one of the few deaths in the original timeline that had been legally explainable on the evidence. It had been a huge relief to learn that Braeden had really been an FBI agent and that the murderer code named "The Desert Wolf" had been a long-term investigation. The feds hadn't even blinked once Braeden and Malia had told their matching versions of events.

"Anyway, the point is that in this timeline Derek doesn't need to bite Jackson for us to end up with a giant homicidal lizard roaming around town."

"Fabulous," Noah said tiredly. "What age do healthy, well adjusted werewolves usually begin to shift?"

"Around nine or ten," Peter said, shaking his head as if he knew what Noah was thinking.

"So much for taking a few years off," Noah complained even though he was already running possible scenarios through his head.

Honestly, the Whittemores were the last people he wanted to share their secret with. Jackson's father said and did all the right things in regards to his adopted son, but he truly was an asshole. Noah hated having to deal with him when they crossed paths in the sheriff's office.

It was mostly the usual "officer of the law butting heads with a defense attorney" type of thing but Whittemore had always seemed extra obnoxious.

It didn't help that Jackson was the kid who'd bullied Stiles most of his young life. Noah had actually been relieved when the Whittemores had packed up their stuff and moved to England in the old timeline. Of course, that had been before he'd known about werewolves and kanimas and things that went bump in the night. "Dealing with the kanima again was not supposed to be in the plans," Noah lamented, allowing himself a moment to regret all of the life decisions that had led him to this point.

"When has anything ever gone according to plan for us?" Peter asked, laughing softly.

"Yeah," Noah agreed, moving to tilt Peter off his chest. "May as well get to it."

Peter refused to move. "It's late," he said, nodding at the clock hanging on the wall, "and Jackson and Malia may not be our most urgent problems."

"Deucalion and Gerard Argent," Noah said, trying not to grit his teeth hard enough to crack the enamel. They'd known that stopping the Hale fire wouldn't solve all of their problems, but Noah had honestly expected a few years of peace.

"And Aiden and Ethan."

"Huh?" Noah asked, searching his memory for the faces to go with the names. "They were the twins who could merge into a giant monster thing?"

Peter nodded.

Noah had heard stories of the twin alphas years later but when they'd been part of the Alpha pack he'd been too busy being clueless and hadn't actually met them. Considering they'd also fallen for Deucalion's lies and killed their pack alpha and then the rest of their pack, Noah never meeting them had probably been a good thing. "How old would they be now?"

"Not sure. They enrolled in Beacon Hills High in the same classes as Stiles and Scott but I think they may have been a few years older."

"Do we know what pack they came from?"

"I think so," Peter said, deliberately avoiding eye contact with Noah. Yeah, that was never a good sign.

"What are you planning?" Noah asked. He'd found over the years that Peter always told the truth. He answered direct questions evasively if he could, but he never actually lied.

"They were pack omegas," Peter said, still not looking at Noah.

"Right now they're children. Innocent children." Noah inhaled sharply. "I won't let you pre-emptively kill children."

The moment Noah felt Peter flinch he knew he'd jumped to the wrong conclusion. He tightened his arms, trying to hold the werewolf to him despite his lover's far superior strength.

"I'm sorry," he said urgently. "Peter, I'm so sorry. Please believe me."

"I do," Peter said, slowly relaxing back into Noah's embrace. "I hadn't even considered it, to be honest, but as the left hand I should have. They're a risk to our pack's future. They're a danger to the people I love. It should probably have been my first consideration."

"But it wasn't," Noah said, trying to steer the conversation away from his own gaff. His only explanation was that he'd been channeling the True Alpha's opinion of Peter rather than his own.

Peter had spent years protecting the McCall pack and he'd done it without the sort of death and destruction Deucalion had created. And yet Scott's opinion of Peter had never changed. He'd let Deucalion walk away, even after killing Erica and ordering Boyd's death, but Scott had never even noticed that the only people Peter had killed were the one's that had killed his family and tried to kill him. And Scott had been one of those people, so he'd really had no right to have the opinion he'd stubbornly clung to for years.

"No, killing two kids wasn't my first thought," Peter confirmed, taking a deep breath that made him seem a little nervous. "My first thought was to adopt them."

"Adopt them?" Noah asked, not really surprised when he took into account how much Peter hated having missed out on his own kids' lives.

"They're a dangerous weapon," Peter said, trying to sound like he was motivated by practicality and not sentiment. "Better on our side, than his."

"True," Noah agreed, "but that wasn't your only reason."

Peter chuckled softly. "Darling, you know me too well."

"Stop with the fake flattery." Noah rolled his eyes even though Peter couldn't see him. "And the deflection and tell me the real reason."

Peter shrugged. "They're pack omegas as well as orphans. They live on the fringes of the pack and they're—"

"Abused and neglected," Noah finished for him when Peter seemed unable to say the words.

"Yeah," Peter admitted. "I don't know when they were orphaned but it was long enough to build up enough anger to join Deucalion and murder their whole pack." And he tacked on casually, "And it will help stabilize Derek to have the two betas with him."

"So the pack is really deserting him?" Noah asked. He'd known the Hale pack had gathered to discuss the future and that most of them had been unhappy someone so young and traumatized had somehow become their leader, but Noah hadn't realized Hale pack loyalties could be so fickle.

"Some are leaving to join other packs," Peter said, his anger at them still very clear in his words. "The others are just sidelining him until someone better comes along."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning they'll stay away for as long as they can before they become omegas and then they'll come crawling back, promising to be better betas until they're stable enough to abandon him all over again."

"Fuck," Noah whispered, mad as hell that Derek's blood relatives cared so little for him, especially considering they'd all known what he'd been through. "Will any of them attack him to become the alpha themselves?"

"They know they won't live long if they do," Peter said with a grim smile, none of the power hungry zeal that once motivated him in his tone. Just a promise of retribution if any of his own family attacked their alpha.

"You're right. Sounds like Ethan and Aiden are our top priority."

"And Jackson," Peter said. "Alpha's are more stable with a minimum of three betas."

"Okay, yeah, they're our top priorities."

"Unless Gerard Argent comes looking for his daughter first."

"Yeah, unless that happens."

~*~

Stiles really was trying to sleep, but some nights his brain just didn't want to shut up. Tonight felt like it was going to be a really bad one and he needed a distraction. It was too bad that Peter's library wasn't fixed yet. Stiles really wanted to read some books on magic and werewolves and alphas. He wanted to know everything about everything but the Internet had been as useless as his dad had warned him it would be.

If he just had one book from Peter's library he could at least get started.

A strange smell tickled his nose and he scrunched it up to stop himself from sneezing. It didn't work, so he pushed himself into a sitting position so he could reach the tissues. But instead of the cardboard box his hand landed on something that felt like leather.

He wiped his nose on his sleeve as he reached over to turn on the bedside light. He didn't recognize the book but it looked really old. And yeah, it was the source of that funky smell.

Stiles picked it up and turned it over. The words used letters he'd never seen before but he was pretty sure they said "Magic for Beginners."

He grinned really wide, settled into a comfortable spot, and opened it to the first page.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

Noah really didn't like being told what to do.

Maybe it was because he'd been the sheriff, or maybe it was just that he was seventeen years older than the body he now inhabited, but whatever the reasons it was making it really difficult to get through each day on the job as a deputy of the Beacon Hills Sheriff's department.

"Bad shift?" Peter asked when Noah let himself into his lover's apartment and shuffled tiredly toward the super-comfortable sofa that now inhabited Peter's home office.

"I hate the graveyard shift," Noah said, nearly face-planting into the cushions before managing to right himself.

Peter noticed, of course he did, so Noah wasn't at all surprised when strong arms wrapped around him before easing him down gently.

"You're hurt," Peter growled even as the pain eased and thick black lines traveled up Peter's arms.

"Just bruised," Noah said, trying to play down the extent of his injuries. "The x-rays were clear."

"X-rays?"

Yeah, wrong thing to say.

"Noah?" Peter asked in a tone that was both mother-hen and avenging-angel rolled into one. "What happened and who do I need to kill?"

"No killing required," Noah said, knowing that Peter probably wasn't joking. He'd proven to be even more protective now that they were lovers than he'd been in the alternate timeline. And yeah, that was really saying something. "Just a couple of unruly drunks who decided to duke it out in the holding cell. I ended up in the middle of it."

"Where was your back up?"

"Out on a call," Noah said. "We were stretched a little thin, that's all."

"Caused by another bad decision from the current sheriff, no doubt," Peter said, very likely already plotting the man's demise. Noah didn't really want to encourage Peter by agreeing with him or mentioning the undermanned shifts, but staying silent pretty much did the same thing. Peter's sigh sounded completely exasperated. "How did he even get the job?"

"It's an elected position," Noah reminded him.

"Oh yes. That's right," Peter asked, pushing a casualness into his voice that Noah didn't trust for a moment. "When is the next election?"

"I'd have to look it up," Noah said, practicing Peter's method for evading an answer while still offering the truth.

"No problem," Peter said with a shrug. "I'll look it up. I have this thing called the Internet."

"Fine," Noah said, relaxing into the comfort of the sofa as Peter continued to drain away the ache. "It's early next year."

"How many candidates are running?"

"Just one," Noah mumbled.

"He's running unchallenged?" Peter asked, sounding scandalized. The ridiculous _drama llama_. And, yes, Noah may have been spending a little more time with Stiles than was strictly healthy. "Well we can't have that. It's hardly democratic."

"It is if no one else wants the job," Noah reminded him.

That threw Peter's rant sideways a little. "You don't want the job?" he asked, sounding bewildered.

"I do," Noah said tiredly. "Just not yet."

"Because you want to spend more time with Stiles?"

"Yeah," Noah admitted. "I missed so much the first time around."

"I get it," Peter said, nodding at the files on Malia and Jackson that seemed to grow daily. "But there is such a thing as too much parenting."

"Yeah," Noah agreed, taking his first deep breath in what felt like hours.

"You're really in a lot of pain," Peter said worriedly. "Are you sure your ribs aren't broken."

"Just bruised," he assured his lover. "And the hospital gave me some meds. I just didn't want to take them in case they made me drowsy and made it dangerous to drive."

"Noah," Peter said tiredly. "All you had to do was call me."

"I know," Noah said, kind of wishing that he had called. He hadn't realized just how much his ribs had been hurting until Peter had taken his pain. "I just didn't want to worry you. You're dealing with enough right now."

Peter raised an eyebrow, obviously wanting to call him on his shit—they'd both been through far worse than they were dealing with right now—but he leaned close and pressed a gentle kiss to Noah's lips instead.

"Where are your meds?"

"Top pocket," Noah said, nodding down at his own chest and immediately wishing he hadn't. Even with the werewolf pain drain the sharp spike of agony had him seeing stars.

"You're an idiot," Peter said, trying to cover his concern with insults. "Next time you call me no matter how busy you think I am. Are we clear?"

"Yeah," Noah agreed, breathing a bit easier again. "I'll call. Next time, I'll call."

"Wow." Peter huffed out a small laugh as he reached into Noah's pocket and grabbed the tiny zip-lock bag with six tablets inside. "If I'd known all I needed was to go all dominant to get you to comply, our sexy times might have started much sooner."

"U-huh," Noah said. He knew his werewolf, and "dominant" wasn't really in his nature. He loved fiercely and he protected with deadly force when necessary, but he was a left hand, not a leader, not the alpha. And Noah loved him for it, for the person he'd become despite the horrific tragedy that was his life in the old timeline. "You know how much I hate taking orders these days."

"True." Peter shrugged, grinning smugly. "Maybe it depends who they come from."

"Got me there," Noah conceded easily. Both Peter and Stiles got bossy when they were concerned for people they loved.

"But I should probably report this incident to my alpha," Peter said, managing to sound serious.

"Now you're playing dirty," Noah said, absolutely certain Peter was bluffing.

In the three weeks since the timeline reset Stiles had easily wrapped them both around his little fingers. It was a truly incredible and unexpected gift to know his son didn't remember the horror of the old timeline. They had a lot of work ahead of them if they wanted to build a better future this time around, but Noah would do it a thousand times over if it meant his son got a second chance without the baggage Noah and Peter both carried.

"Open," Peter ordered, lifting a tablet to Noah's lips and placing it on his tongue. He grinned when Noah complied and then Peter reached over to grab a bottle of cold water from the fridge under his desk without stopping the pain drain. He uncapped it one handed and pressed the bottle to Noah's lips. "Drink and then stretch out on the sofa and get some rest."

Noah laughed softly, enjoying being coddled by the man who loved him, and then did exactly what Peter ordered.

~*~

Stiles didn't even see Jackson before the jerk tripped him. He hit the ground hard, landing on his hands and knees, and skinning both in the process. Scott was there, quick to try and help him up, but one of the other boys pushed him too, knocking him into Stiles and they both ended up back on the ground.

Jackson's laugh sounded really mean as he turned and walked away. Thankfully his stupid worshipers went with him.

Scott was wheezing with an asthma attack before Stiles could get them both upright again. Fortunately they'd been friends for a long time and Stiles knew which pocket Scott kept his inhaler in his back pack. Stiles helped him get the right amount into his lungs and then stayed with him while the medicine worked and Scott was able to calm down.

"You okay now, dude?"

Scott nodded and took a couple more slow deep breaths just in case.

"You're bleeding," Scott finally said, wrinkling his nose at the red streak Stiles had accidentally left on Scott's backpack.

"Sorry," he said, rubbing his hands down the side of his pants to wipe off the blood.

"Maybe we should go to the nurse," Scott said as he tried to clean the blood off his backpack by dragging it through the grass and only managing to add a green grass stain next to the red.

"It's only a little cut," Stiles said, looking at his hands more closely. They were scrapped raw and that was going to hurt later, but only a few spots were deep enough to be bleeding. "And it's pretty much stopped bleeding now anyway." Stiles adjusted his backpack to fit more comfortably and tilted his head in the direction they needed to go. "We're going to be late for class."

"Stiles," Peter whispered into his mind. "I'm going to pick you up today so don't catch the bus."

"Sure," Stiles said using only his mind. Yeah, who needed a cell phone when they had telepathy? It'd be really handy if he could figure out how to bring his dad into the conversation too. "Is everything okay?"

The past three weeks had been weird. Good weird, his dad was home whenever Stiles wasn't at school, but also weird-weird in a weird way. Hey, he managed to fit "weird" into a sentence four times. Yeah, his English teacher was so wrong about Stiles's language skills. He was a total legend.

"Nothing's wrong," Peter replied in _that_ tone which meant something was totally wrong and he didn't want to tell Stiles about it.

"Peter," he said, trying to inject his exasperation into his telepathic voice. "Is my dad okay?"

"He's fine. He just had a rough shift at work so you're both going to stay here tonight that's all."

"Peter you'd tell me if something was wrong, wouldn't you?"

"I will always tell you if there's something you need to worry about."

"You know I can see through that evasion shit, right?"

"I do," Peter said with a soft laugh.

"I might only be nine, but I'm not an idiot."

"Your dad is fine, Stiles. Shouldn't you be in class?"

"I _am_ in class," Stiles said, exaggerating just a little. He and Scott were almost there.

"Okay. Learn good."

"Learn _well_ ," Stile corrected before he realized Peter was most likely teasing him. Then again, with all the weird books he'd been loaning to Stiles maybe his English was getting all screwed up.

Peter laughed softly. "I'll be there when school gets out."

"Yeah, see you then."

~*~

Derek had chosen not to go back to Beacon Hills high school. He still needed an education, of course, but he could do most of it online from the privacy of his temporary new bedroom in his temporary new home.

He glanced at all the bright and shiny new stuff Peter had brought for him and wondered how long it would be before he realized—the way his dad and his sister and the rest of the Hale pack had—that Derek was a waste of space and not worth his time.

The knock on the door wasn't a surprise—it was a small apartment and not soundproofed for werewolf hearing—but Derek didn't bother answering.

Of course, Uncle Peter could be an invasive jerk some days and he just twisted the handle open and let himself in.

"I need to go pick up Stiles from school," he said, mentioning the name of a person Derek didn't even want to think about. "Can you keep an ear out for Noah? He's asleep on the sofa in my office."

That caught Derek's attention. "Is everything okay?" Something had to be terribly wrong if Peter was asking him to babysit a full-grown sheriff's deputy.

"It will be," Peter said calmly. "There was a physical altercation down at the station. Noah's fine. Just bruised and in pain. Just keep an ear out for him. I won't be long."

"So you're bringing Stiles here?" Derek asked, ignoring the part of him that was glad the kid would be safe in Peter's care and concentrating on the fact that he did not want that annoying little brat anywhere near him.

"I'll keep him distracted," Peter said, "but I would appreciate it if you came out of your room for dinner."

Derek really wanted to say "hell, no" to that, but his therapist had made him promise that he'd spend time with actual people at least once a day. "Okay," he said, even as his heart rate spiked with dread.

Peter gave him a sympathetic smile, and Derek scrambled to change the subject.

"Any progress on Malia or Jackson?"

"Some," Peter said. "Malia's parents agreed to meet with me when I mentioned a concerning medical condition of which they're currently unaware."

Derek huffed an annoyed laugh at that description. Lycanthropy wasn't exactly a _medical_ _condition_ but it was probably something a family of humans needed to know about the child they were raising.

"Still no idea why Mom would place shifter babies with human families?" He'd asked the question when Peter had first told him about his cousins, but it seemed like the sort of thing someone should know. Even Derek's dad had been unable to answer it. He hadn't even known Peter had children, let alone that Derek's mom had stolen them and hidden them away with human families. If he'd had the memories, Talia had taken them as well.

"Not yet," Peter said, sounding both worn down by the idea and determined to unravel an answer. "The Tate's at least live in a remote area. I have no idea what Talia was thinking when she placed Jackson with his family in the suburbs, especially when the kid turns into a kanima."

"A what?" Derek asked. He'd read quite a few of the books from the family library since the fire, but he was pretty sure he was misremembering what a kanima was. "A…um… giant lizard?"

"Ah," Peter said, seemingly surprised by Derek's reaction. "Yeah." He was apparently reluctant to share the information—which was definitely out of character—but Peter took a deep breath and then continued. "At this stage it's only a _potential_ side-effect of being raised by humans. Hopefully we'll be able to avoid it."

"Oh, okay," Derek said, glad to hear that it was only a potential. But it also made his mother's decision to place Jackson with humans even more puzzling. 

A giant, deadly lizard running around town without understanding who or what he was would have been catastrophic. And may have even exposed the supernatural community to all the humans.

What the hell had his mother been thinking?

  
  



	3. Chapter 3

"Hi, Peter," Stiles said, throwing his school bag into the back before he climbed into the front passenger seat and fought with the seatbelt until Peter leaned over, straightened it out, and clipped it into place. "Thanks."

"How was school?" Peter asked, wrinkling his nose at the smell of his alpha's blood. It wasn't much and it was clear that Stiles wasn't actively bleeding, but it wasn't a smell his werewolf side was happy with.

"Same shit, different day," Stiles said, poking his tongue at Peter when he frowned at the use of the cuss word. "Yeah, yeah, I know. No swearing unless it's in my head." He repeated the phrase telepathically and Peter couldn't help but laugh.

"I'm not sure that's what your father meant," Peter said, flicking his indicator and moving back into the slowly moving after-school traffic. The kid was smart and a seriously fast learner but Peter and Noah had no idea how Stiles having an active spark at such a young age was going to affect the future. They were already experiencing the "Butterfly Effect" of time travel, so even though they knew certain information they no longer had a timetable for any of it to happen. They were trying to get ahead of potential problems while also bracing for new ones.

Maybe knowing the future as it once happened wasn't as helpful as they'd hoped it would be but it was better than knowing nothing at all.

"So nothing out of the ordinary happened today?" Peter prompted, trying to get his alpha to explain the blood without Peter needing to go off the deep end.

"Nope," Stiles said, popping the "p" obnoxiously.

"No accidents or um…incidents."

"Nope," Stiles said again. "Math is boring, English sucks, and Scott had an asthma attack thanks to that douche, Jackson Whittemore." He shrugged and added telepathically, "Same shit, different day."

"Jackson bullies Scott?"

"More like Jackson bullies me. Scott's kind of a bonus for him because Scott always comes to my rescue." He shrugged and looked out the window. "He's just not very good at it and usually ends up having an asthma attack."

"But he tries to help you?" Peter asked, not sure why he was pushing this line of inquiry. He should probably be more concerned that his son "the potential kanima" was bullying his mate's son, the nine-year-old active spark who was far stronger at this age than anyone had anticipated. Peter and Noah couldn't decide whether Stiles had been this powerful at this age in the old timeline—untapped and inactive—or if Stiles's developed abilities had come back to his younger self, just without the memories of a future that was no longer going to happen.

"Of course he tries to help," Stiles said in the exasperated tone of nine-year-olds the world over when faced with parental concerns. "He's my best friend. My brother."

And wasn't that the biggest irony in life.

Technically, thanks to Peter and Noah's relationship, Jackson was Stiles brother, not Scott.

Peter was pretty sure his tiny alpha would not be happy when he learned that.

~*~

"I'm fine," Noah growled when he heard Peter's footsteps into the room. It felt like he'd checked on him five times in the past twenty minutes.

"Sorry," Derek mumbled quietly as he turned to leave the room.

"Hey," Noah called, opening his eyes. "Sorry Derek. I though you were Peter."

"I kind of am," Derek said with a tiny shrug. "He asked me to keep an eye on you while he collects Stiles from school."

"Of course he did," Noah said, groaning as he tried to sit up. Derek hesitated, clearly unsure if his help would be welcomed, so Noah reached out to him. "Help me up?"

"Sure," Derek said, as eager to help as Stiles would be now that he knew he wouldn't be rebuffed. The pain drain was a wonderful relief and not something Noah would have asked the young werewolf to do, but there was no way Noah was rejecting Derek or denying himself the chance to move without feeling every muscle in his ribcage scream in protest.

"Peter 's bringing Stiles back here?"

"Yeah. He left about twenty minutes ago," Derek said, glancing at the clock. "They should be back pretty soon."

Noah nodded in acknowledgment and then tried to figure out what subject they could discuss that wouldn't send Derek running back to his room. But Derek beat him to it.

"How did you and Uncle Peter meet?"

"I honestly don't remember," Noah said, trying to remember the past seventeen years of a future that wouldn't happen. "I think it was during an investigation." He remembered very clearly the mouthless assassin Peter had killed, but he was also pretty sure it hadn't been the first time they'd met in the old timeline.

Derek seemed to pale at that explanation and it took Noah a moment to realize why.

"I know about werewolf packs," Noah said, watching Derek closely for his reactions. "And I know how the hierarchy works." He reached over and patted Derek's hand where it was draining away Noah's pain. "I know what a left hand does and I know that was Peter's role for your sister."

"Okay," Derek said, looking relieved but apparently trying to hide that too.

"Uncle Peter told me he's looking into adopting a couple of werewolf orphans."

"He is," Noah confirmed, watching Derek closely.

"Is he doing that just to stabilize me?"

"It's not really as simple as that," Noah said carefully. "Yes, it will help stabilize you, but it's also as much for them. Do you know what a pack omega is?"

"No," Derek said, looking worried.

The kid had spent the past three weeks trying to absorb as much information about being an alpha werewolf as he could. Noah hated that Derek felt like he was failing despite going above and beyond to learn and grow and make up for mistakes that had never been his fault.

Noah understood that the grieving process was different for everyone, but he ached for the hurt this young man felt. Derek had lost almost as much in this timeline as he had in the old one. His father and sister, cousins, aunts and uncles may not be dead in this timeline, but they'd abandoned him simply by following their werewolf instincts. The kid deserved better, and even if Noah could understand the werewolf instinct to follow the strongest leader, he would never forgive them for not caring enough to stay and help Derek through such a terrible loss.

In the end the kid was better off without them. Peter and Noah—and one day Stiles as well—would help Derek grow into the incredible alpha he was always meant to be and they'd help kids like Aiden and Ethan as well in the process.

"Pack omegas," Noah said, trying to remember the words Peter had used to explain it to him, "are basically victims of domestic violence, usually at the hands of their entire pack."

Derek looked ill just imagining it and Noah placed his hand on Derek's shoulder, squeezing gently to let him know he felt the same. Noah saw way too much family violence in his day job to ever tolerate that sort of thing in his own family and pack.

"How could an alpha let that happen?" Derek asked in a sad voice.

"I don't know," Noah admitted. "Just like I can't understand how a human father can lock his son inside an old refrigerator as some form of sick punishment for imagined wrong doings."

"You've seen that?" Derek asked worriedly, his empathy for the child he'd not yet met very clear in his eyes.

"An old case," Noah said, not wanting to try and explain how he knew about abuse Isaac Lahey suffered in the old timeline. Derek didn't need that burden of memory any more than Stiles did.

"Do you think Uncle Peter's right? That I can be a good alpha for two traumatized kids?"

"Derek, I think the very fact that you're worried about it proves that you will be." Noah gave him a very serious look. "A good leader learns and grows and empathizes and adapts. You're already doing that, so yes, I believe you will be an incredible alpha."

"Thanks," Derek said blushing slightly. He tilted his head at a noise that Noah couldn't hear. "Uncle Peter and Stiles just got home."

"I assume Peter is planning to keep me under his supervision until I get a little better. Will you be okay if Stiles and I stay here a couple of days?"

"It's fine," Derek said, giving Noah a half-smile. "I don't dislike Stiles. It's just…"

When he seemed unable to find the words to explain a situation that was far more complicated than was fair to either of the boys, Noah nodded and suggested, "Bad timing?"

"Yeah," Derek said, breathing out a deep sigh.

"I'll keep him out of your way while we're here," Noah promised.

"Thanks," Derek said, staying only long enough to say hello and let Peter take over the pain drain before excusing himself to go do some more school work.

~*~

Stiles couldn't hide his disappointment when Derek left the room. His dad had assured him that Derek was sad because of the fire and because his stupid family had moved away without him. Dad had promised Derek wasn't sad because Stiles was annoying him, but some days it kind of felt that way. Stiles wasn't trying to be annoying. He just wanted to know everything about werewolves and he sometimes forgot that not everyone wants to answer endless questions.

At least with all the books Peter kept loaning him he was able to find answers without annoying anyone.

"How was school, kiddo," Dad asked, moving pretty easily and without pain. But Stiles wasn't fooled. He could see the thick black lines disappearing into Peter's sleeve.

"Same sh—stuff, different day," Stiles said, wiping his hands down the seams of his pants when he remembered the crap with Jackson _the total douche_ Whittemore. "Dad, you know how you said Jackson was just being nasty because he was adopted." Dad nodded. Stiles was pretty sure he was just pretending to remember. He'd forgotten a lot of things in the weeks since the Hale fire. It was almost like he was a different person. "Do you think maybe Jackson is angry all the time because he doesn't know he's a werewolf?'

Dad's eyes opened wider and he turned to look at Peter. Stiles preferred Peter's reaction because he smirked—it was kind of weird how much it was like the way Jackson smiled sometimes—and laughed softly.

"How did you know he's a werewolf?" Peter asked, seeming very interested in Stiles's answer.

"I'm not really sure," Stiles admitted. "I just kind of do." He shrugged. "Kind of like the same way I know Lydia Martin screams _before_ people die. She's not human, but I'm not sure what she is. She's not a werewolf."

"She's a banshee," Peter said, ignoring Dad's glare. "They're sometimes called 'wailing women.'"

"Wow," Stiles said, really glad to know that. Hopefully he'd be able to find some information in the books Peter kept leaving on his bedside table.

"But Lydia doesn't know yet," Dad said, "so you can't say anything to her. Okay, kiddo?"

Stiles was getting really tired of not being able to tell anyone anything. But he was good at keeping secrets. Especially the important ones like the fact that even though Peter told everyone Derek's mom had left town to try and bring her eldest daughter home she was actually dead. Derek was the alpha now and the only way to become an alpha werewolf was to steal it from someone by killing them or inherit it from a family member. That meant that Derek's mom was dead and since Derek got his red alpha eyes right in front of Stiles that meant he didn't kill his mom.

"Okay," Stiles agreed just a little bit reluctantly. "I won't tell Lydia. She's not very nice most of the time anyway."

"It's a difficult age," Dad agreed.

Stiles shrugged. He was nine and he wasn't a douche or a mean person so maybe it was just a difficult age for kids who didn't know who they really were.

"Okay," Dad said in his tone that said he was changing the subject. "What should we do about dinner?"

"Pizza?" Stiles suggested enthusiastically. But then he remembered his dad needed to eat healthy food. He gave Peter a hard look. "Vegetable pizza for dad and a side salad."

Dad tried to pout but it just looked really silly. "One slice of meat lovers and I'll eat all the salad you want me to."

"Deal," Stiles said before his dad could try and negotiate more stuff like ranch dressing.

"The takeout pamphlets are in the top drawer of the side table in the hallway," Peter said, tilting his chin toward that way.

Stiles gave him the stink eye because, seriously? He'd seen Peter order stuff on his phone. The guy didn't need a piece of paper to order pizza.

"I just need a minute with your dad," Peter said, directly into his mind like he didn't want dad knowing. That didn't make any sense so Stiles just rolled his eyes and went to search for takeout pamphlets that probably didn't exist.

~*~

"He's already stronger than he was seventeen years from now," Peter whispered, hoping like hell Stiles hadn't developed shifter-strength hearing. He didn't even want to contemplate the idea of Stiles having access to Peter's memories and thoughts whenever they spoke telepathically. He was pretty sure that wasn't happening, but he had no way of knowing for sure without asking Stiles and that would create a whole new set of problems. Stiles spark was based on belief. If he believed it would work, it did.

And at nine years old Stiles had no real concept of failure.

"We may need to call in some help," Peter suggested, keeping a close ear on the sliding drawers and muttered annoyance coming from Stiles where he was searching for takeout pamphlets down the hallway.

"No," Noah said without preamble or explanation. He didn't really need to explain though. They'd spent years on the run from hunters who'd wanted to control Stiles and the power he wielded.

"These things are usually inherited. Maybe someone on Claudia's side of the family can help."

Noah looked unconvinced but Peter could hear Stiles stomping back toward them.

"I'll think about it," Noah said, a moment before Stiles came into the room.

"Can't find 'em," Stiles said, giving Peter a foul look. "Can you just use your phone now?"

"Of course," Peter said. Even with werewolf coordination it was difficult to unlock his phone without taking his hand away from Noah's arm where he was draining the pain from his injuries.

"Can I help?" Stiles asked, moving closer.

"Go for it," Peter said, reaching to pass over his phone before he realized Stiles had meant to help with something else.

Peter and Noah watched with barely concealed shock as Stiles placed his hand on Noah's arm and started to drain the pain, werewolf style.

"Yeah," Noah said, shaken more than Peter had ever seem him. "I'll make some calls."

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

"Mr. and Mrs. Tate, thank you for agreeing to see me," Peter said, stepping onto the front porch of the Tate's family home. They'd been waiting for him outside, and it seemed clear Peter wasn't going to get an invite into the house.

"You said our daughter has a medical condition," Mrs. Tate said in a defensive tone. "We're good parents. Of course we agreed to see you, but if you think—"

"Is there a reason you couldn't just send the details to our lawyer?" Mr. Tate asked, trying to sound conciliatory despite his aggressive words and his wife's obvious worry.

For a moment—just a moment—Peter considered changing into his beta form and getting the whole werewolf thing out of the way, but he'd promised Noah he wouldn't be so tactless.

When he apparently stayed quiet a little too long Mrs. Tate added, "You gave up your rights when you signed the adoption papers."

"That's what the paperwork says," Peter said, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

The signature on the paperwork wasn't his, but right now that didn't change anything. He would not rip Malia from a happy family home. Assuming, of course, that it was the happy family home Malia had remembered before her first shift that accidentally killed her mother and younger sister in the old timeline. If Peter learned otherwise, the Tate's didn't have nearly enough money to stop the legal and possible criminal action he would bring down on them.

Yeah, he was a righteous, judgmental prick with loads of family money and he'd use that power if it meant keeping his daughter safe. But only if it kept her safe.

"I'm not here today to challenge your custody," Peter said, trying to keep his voice low and kind. "My only concern is that you're aware of a family affliction that can be difficult for humans to deal with."

Mr. Tate raised an eyebrow, unimpressed with the way Peter had phrased it, but Mrs. Tate shrank back into her seat. Peter gave her a curious look, but she shook her head and bit her lips together nervously.

"You've noticed," Peter said, not making it a question. He took an educated guess. "Her eyes flashed yellow."

The woman looked down at her hands but mumbled the words "more than once."

"It's okay," Peter said, attempting to be reassuring. He'd barely mastered that skill when it came to family. He wasn't used to trying it on people he didn't know. "She's like any other girl her age. We just need to—"

"We?" Mr. Tate said interrupting Peter's half-planned speech. "You are _not_ a part of this. Whatever condition she has we'll deal with it. As a family. Which does _not_ include you."

_Sorry, Noah_ , Peter thought, making sure both Mr. and Mrs. Tate were looking directly at him as he changed. He grinned with his fangs and flashed his blue eyes at them for good measure.

Predictably they both knocked their chairs over hurriedly backing away.

"What the fuck?" Mr. Tate said, pulling his wife back with him.

Mrs. Tate looked scared as hell but she pulled away from her husband and took a step toward Peter. "Malia's like you?"

"She's a coyote-shifter," Peter said. "She takes after her birth mother."

"Does that mean you're not a coyote-shifter?"

"Correct," Peter said, letting his shift melt away. He was careful to make sure his teeth were back to their human shape before smiling. "I'm a werewolf."

"Does your sister know?" Mr. Tate asked, moving forward to present a united front with his wife.

Peter hesitated at the use of present tense. Talia had died before the house fire, but rather than explain the three violent deaths that had occurred that day, Peter, Noah, Derek and the former members of the Hale pack had made sure a believable story was circulating.

"Yes," Peter said, shoving aside the emotions that would do him no damn good in this situation. "Talia is a werewolf also. I was concerned when I realized she'd placed the twins with human families."

"Twins?" Mr. Tate asked. "Malia has a twin?"

"She does," Peter confirmed, wondering if he should mention Jackson by name or not. It was probably better to err on the side of caution considering his adoptive father's occupation. Peter didn't really want to _start_ with a law suit.

"And they're both coyote-shifters," Mrs. Tate asked, obviously very frightened but willing to protect her daughter. So far it seemed that Malia's memories of her mother were quite accurate. Peter turned to scrutinize Mr. Tate. He'd put Malia in Eichen House after she'd been gone for years. Noah had suggested he'd been trying to do the best he could for his daughter at the time, but Peter had spent time in Eichen himself and he had a very good idea how much of a nightmare the place had been.

"Malia's brother takes after me. He's a werewolf, but just like Malia he doesn't know that right now."

"So why now?" Mr. Tate asked. "Why are you telling us this now?"

Peter skipped over the _I only just found out_ reason and voiced the other one. "Werewolves and coyote-shifters experience their first shift around the ages of nine or ten. It can be frightening—especially for Malia who has a full shift." At their confused expressions he added, "She can turn into a coyote, four legs and a tail etcetera. It's quite common for coyote-shifters, but a lot rarer for werewolves. My sister and maybe one day her son, Derek, can achieve the full shift. The rest of us just get the sideburns and fangs." Peter had no intention of mentioning the twisted alpha form he'd taken on when he'd killed Laura in the old timeline.

"What do we need to do?" Mrs. Tate asked, moving to lift her chair back into place and take a seat at the wooden table again.

"First shift usually happens on a full moon anywhere between the ages of nine to thirteen. Any later than that can have serious complications."

"Complications?" Mr. Tate asked worriedly. "What sort of complications?"

"The sort of complications we can avoid," Peter said, unwilling to go into details on kanimas and other nightmare scenarios. "I know it's not an ideal situation, but I know you care for Malia and will do anything to make sure she's safe. Please know that I'll do the same."

"You haven't answered my wife's question," Mr. Tate said, apparently unhappy that Peter hadn't gone into detail on possible complications. "What do we need to do to help Malia?"

"I have some ideas," Peter said, nodding in acknowledgment as Mr. Tate joined them at the table and they started to hammer out the details.

~*~

"Finally," Noah muttered as he glanced at the number for an incoming phone call. "Hi, Rafe. Thanks for calling me back."

"I'm busy Stilinski. What do you want?"

Yeah, he'd forgotten how much of a dick Rafe McCall could be. May as well be as blunt at him.

"Help rescuing two children from a cult not far from you."

"A cult?" Rafe asked, apparently intrigued despite his attempt to sound annoyed.

"A friend of mine says one of his cousins joined the cult before the boys were born. He and his wife died about a year ago in a car accident and none of the family knows where the boys ended up."

"Sounds like an issue for the sheriff's office," Rafe said, again pretending to be uninterested.

"I already tried them," Noah said, swallowing his annoyance at the way he'd been fobbed off because it was out of Beacon Hills' jurisdiction. "They're refusing to investigate."

"So call child services."

"Already tried them too," Noah said as his left eyelid began to twitch with his growing irritation. "It took a lot of digging but I finally got an admission—a very _unofficial_ admission—that the department steers clear of the compound because of the disgusting conditions. I believe the exact words the inspector used were 'I don't get paid enough to deal with that many rats.' We need to get the feds involved, Rafe. These kids are in danger."

"Fine, okay," Rafe said. "Send me the details. I'll look into it."

"Thanks," Noah said.

Rafe grunted and hung up.

~*~

Stiles wrinkled his nose at the smell.

"New math teacher?" Scott asked in a whisper as they took their seats in the middle of the room.

"Not sure," Stiles said, still trying to identify the strange smell. "Maybe Miss Keelson is off sick.

"Take your seats," the new teacher said in a cold voice. Yikes. "Miss Keelson was fired because she couldn't teach math to save her life."

Stiles shivered at the phrasing. He was pretty sure the woman at the blackboard didn't mean it literally, but he couldn't shake the feeling that she also kind of did. He sure hoped Miss Keelson was alright.

"We have a lot of catching up to do." The new teacher gave them all a disgusted look. "Try to keep up."

What followed was the most exhilarating math lesson Stiles ever had, so it took him a while to realize how much Scott was struggling. But it was the wheezing that was seriously alarming.

"Scott?" he whispered urgently. "Scott, grab your inhaler."

Scott was terrified, his eyes wide, his chest over inflated, his complexion unnaturally ruddy.

"Dude," Stiles said, no longer whispering. He fell off his chair as he scrambled to reach Scott's bag. But the inhaler wasn't in the usual pocket. "Scott, where's your inhaler? Scotty, come on dude, stay with me."

The new teacher, who hadn't bothered to introduce herself—the bitch—shook her head irritably. "Take him to the nurse," she said, flapping her hand in the direction of the hallway.

Stiles nodded, doing his best but still struggling to lift Scott out of his chair. Jackson's idiotic followers were all snickering behind their hands—the assholes—but Jackson not only growled at them to stop he got up to help. Fortunately Jackson was much strong than he looked and they were able to get Scott out into the hallway and then they hurried toward the nurse's office.

The room was unlocked but the nurse wasn't inside.

"Shit," Stiles said, helping Scott into the chair before rushing to the other door and looking both ways down the hallway.

"Calm down, Stilinski," Jackson said, walking over to the nurses desk and lifting the phone from the wall. "I'll call an ambulance, okay?"

Stiles nodded frantically and dropped to his knees as Scott slid sideways. He was out cold and his lips were blue and Stiles knew enough to be fucking terrified. Jackson spoke calmly into the phone, only losing his temper a little bit when the dispatcher apparently asked why a student and not the nurse was making the call.

"They're going to be too late," Stiles said, his own chest tightening as panic swirled into his mind. But that just made him angry. He wasn't going to let himself check out and have a panic attack while his best friend was dying.

He pressed his hands against Scott's chest wondering frantically if chest compressions would help in this situation. He just wanted Scott to get better, to be able to breath, to not have to suffer asthma attacks all the time.

Stiles almost didn't notice the way his hands glowed until Jackson spoke.

"The fuck, Stilinski!" he said, moving closer to Stiles's hands. "How are you doing that?"

"I don't know," Stiles admitted. He didn't have a clue what he was doing or why but somehow Scott's color was returning and he was breathing again.

"What's going on here," the nurse said, startling Stiles before pushing him out of the way to check on Scott's breathing. "Asthma attack?"

Scott nodded and then shook his head and then nodded again.

"So which one is it?" the nurse asked, sounding annoyed. "Yes or no?"

"He was having an asthma attack," Jackson said, shoving Stiles as he walked past. "It wasn't as bad a these idiots thought it was."

"Okay," the nurse said. "You two back to class. I'll call Scott's mom."

"Better cancel the ambulance," Jackson said, sneering at Scott. "I called one when this moron thought he was dying."

"Okay," the nurse said, still watching Scott's breathing. "Thank you, Jackson." She reached for the phone and waved them both away.

Stiles was starting to think everything was going to be okay until Jackson took the first opportunity to slam him up against a locker in the deserted hallway.

"What the fuck was that, Stilinski?"

"I don't…" Stiles said, breathlessly. "I don't know what you mean."

"You know exactly what I mean," Jackson said through gritted teeth, getting in Stiles's face and glaring daggers at him. "I want to know how you did that and then you're going to tell me where you got that power from."

"I… I…"

"What are you boys doing in the hallway?" one of the ladies from the office asked in a no-nonsense tone. "Shouldn't you be in class?"

"We're going," Jackson said, letting go of Stiles and walking toward their classroom as if he hadn't just been threatening Stiles.

"Sorry," Stiles said, willing to risk the lady's wrath if it meant getting some distance from Jackson. "We just took a friend to see the nurse. He was having a pretty bad asthma attack."

"Okay, well I'm sure the nurse has everything under control, so back to class with you."

"Yes, ma'am," Stiles said, pretending to hurry away but only moving fast enough to watch Jackson step through the door of their classroom first.

He followed a good ten seconds later.

  
  



	5. Chapter 5

Peter liked having Noah in his bed every night.

Of course, Noah's injuries meant that they'd merely cuddled the past four nights, but holding the man close soothed Peter's wolf side in ways he truly hadn't anticipated. Having his alpha under the same roof had helped him sleep better as well. Just knowing the he wouldn't have to drive halfway across town to respond to an emergency certainly made things easier.

But he didn't want to put unnecessary pressure on Derek by suggesting they move the Stilinskis into the apartment or move the four of them into Noah's family home. Either way they were going to be short a bedroom or two when they rescued Aiden and Ethan so the point was kind of moot.

Right now they were approaching the twins' situation using human methods—asking for help from Rafe McCall of all people—but it seemed preferable to the somewhat more violent tendencies werewolves had for settling disputes. Peter had done his research. The pack that was currently abusing Ethan and Aiden was run by an absolute coward of a werewolf. He talked like he was an important man but he didn't have the education or understanding to know how little he understood. He kept control of his pack by encouraging dysfunction and chaos and by keeping them isolated from the outside world.

Peter could absolutely relate to Ethan's and Aiden's actions in the old timeline. He'd happily kill an alpha like that. The biggest—and possibly only—thing holding him back was that he didn't want to be an alpha again. He wouldn't do that to Derek.

But he wasn't above finding the pack a better alpha via his rather long list of contacts. He knew several left hands who'd rather be making the decisions themselves.

Peter was so deep in thought that he almost startled when Stiles opened the car door and slid into the front seat. Peter glanced toward the back door expecting to see Scott, but the kid wasn't there.

"Weren't we supposed to drop Scott at the hospital today?" The kid spent a lot of time in the nurses' lounge waiting for his mom to get off shift, but Peter didn't really have it in him to offer a few hours of babysitting while Melissa worked.

It was probably very petty, but Peter still hadn't been able to push aside the painful memories of the way the True Alpha had treated him in the other timeline. And if anyone suggested that was the reason, Peter would deny it to his dying breath.

"Scott's already at the hospital," Stiles said, sounding very upset. "He had an asthma attack. A really bad one."

Shit.

"Do you want to go visit him?"

"Can we?" Stiles asked, sounding surprised. "I didn't think you liked Scott."

"It's not that I don't like him." _Hate_ was closer to the mark, so he wasn't actually lying. "He doesn't know anything about werewolves and it's dangerous for him to be involved in our world."

"I guess," Stiles said, sounding like an unsure child. It was a little jarring considering that it had been twenty-five days since they'd reset the timeline and this was the first time Peter was actually seeing Stiles uncertain. "Would it be safe enough to visit him just this once?"

Peter could feel his alpha's heartbreak in his own chest. Scott really was his brother in every way but blood.

"Of course," Peter said, squishing down his own emotions to concentrate on his alpha's needs. He handed his cellphone to Stiles. "Call your dad and let him know what's going on."

"Thanks," Stiles said, rubbing the heel of his hand up his cheek and trying to conceal the tears that were about to fall.

And finally Peter was able to think of Scott as just another nine-year-old kid and not the teen who became a True Alpha and made Peter's life even more miserable.

~*~

Melissa didn't know Peter so she gave him a worried side-eye when he followed Stiles into Scott's bedroom.

"It's okay," Stiles said, tilting his head in Peter's direction. "This is my dad's boyfriend, Peter Hale."

Melissa did that thing that adults do that means they're surprised by what Stiles said but not rude enough to say anything about it. It was an astonishingly common reaction for Stiles.

"Hey, Scott," he said, running around the other side of the bed to check on his best friend.

"Hey, bro," Scott said, trying to sound all cool and stuff. It didn't really work for him but as his best friend it was Stiles's sworn duty to pretend Scotty wasn't such a dork.

"How are you doing? Did the doc say when you can go home?"

Scott looked at his mom, but she just shrugged.

"Maybe when they've finished doing all the tests," Scott said.

"Tests? Aw, man, that sucks."

"Yeah," Scott agreed. "I was fine by the time mom came to get me from school, but she kind of freaked out when I described what happened."

"What happened?" Peter asked, pretending to be polite, but Stiles could hear the words inside his head as well as out loud. That was never a good sign.

"It was so weird," Scott said, enthusiastically telling his story now. "I was having an asthma attack and I couldn't find my inhaler."

"It wasn't in your bag," Stiles confirmed.

"But that's the weird part," Scott said. "It was exactly where I keep it when Mom got my bag from class."

"Assholes," Stiles said, knowing exactly what happened. "Jackson's friends were laughing their butts off. They probably put it back in your bag when I took you to the nurse's office."

"Jackson's friends?" Peter asked mildly. Yeah, Stiles was not fooled for a moment by how calm he sounded.

"Not Jackson," Stiles clarified. "He helped me with Scott—you are way heavy, dude—and Jackson growled at his friends for laughing."

"He probably made them put it back," Scott suggested, scratching his chin like he was giving the idea some deep thought.

"Probably," Stiles agreed.

"Anyway," Scott said, enthusiastically continuing with his story. "When I told Mom I passed out when I couldn't breath she, like, freaked out. Apparently recovering from an attack that bad without my inhaler or other medicine is just very unlikely, so the doctors are running more tests to make sure my asthma attack wasn't caused by, like, a brain tumor or something."

Stiles flinched at the suggestion that his best friend might have a condition bad enough to kill him like his mom's brain problem, but then he remembered how Scott had gotten over his asthma attack. Peter apparently noticed something because he switched to telepathy.

"Tiny Alpha, what did you do?"

~*~

"He did what now?" Noah asked. Surely he'd heard that wrong.

"He cured Scott's asthma."

"That's not…" Noah swallowed. "Geez, that _is_ possible for a spark who believes he can do it."

"Yeah," Peter agreed as he carefully wrapped himself around Noah's slowly healing ribs. "Did you have any luck with Claudia's family?"

Noah shook his head slightly. "My Polish is pretty rusty," he admitted. "And I didn't want to just start asking questions that either scared them to silence or had them thinking I was insane. I kept talking about how my son was good at school and such a bright _spark_ , but I'm not sure I got my message across."

"No reaction from his aunts?"

"None that I recognized as understanding." He sighed tiredly. "I'm terrified of seeking help from the wrong person, so I don't have a clue where to go from here. Did anyone see him do it?"

"Jackson."

"Shit."

"Maybe," Peter said with a soft laugh. "Better him than someone else."

"True," Noah said, shifting slightly to get more comfortable in Peter's bed.

"And it gives us an unexpected in."

"Be careful," Noah warned, already imagining the possible lawsuits if Whittemore discovered the supposedly dead father of his adopted son was making contact with Jackson without his permission.

"I will be," Peter assured him. "Do you know anything about what happened to Jackson after the family moved to England?"

"To be honest I never really bothered. I know he was dating Ethan when they came for a _visit_ after senior year." That was a rather polite way of referring to what happened when Tamora Munroe got involved with Gerard Argent and started the fear mongering that had gotten most of the McCall pack killed in the following years.

"Ethan and Jackson were living together in England," Peter said. "And they were celebrating their anniversary when they were attacked."

"Jackson would have been barely seventeen when they moved in together?"

"Maybe even sixteen if they were celebrating their second anniversary," Peter suggested. "What do you think of Whittemore senior?"

"The guy's an asshole," Noah agreed, "but do you really think he's a _homophobic_ asshole?"

"Possibly," Peter said. "I also suspect Jackson and Ethan are mates."

Noah huffed a soft laugh. "Great. As if that doesn't complicate things immensely."

"Maybe not," Peter said, pressing a kiss to Noah's shoulder. "The age difference is only a year or two. Werewolf mates who meet as children usually just become really good friends until their horrible teenage years, but even then there's no rush toward sex. A mate link is far deeper than sexual attraction."

"Good to know," Noah said, mostly thinking of his own son.

Peter knew Noah well enough to guess what he was thinking. "Derek and Stiles are complicated because of the age difference and Derek's trauma and the fact that Stiles is not a werewolf. They'll get there," Peter said, and then added on a whisper, "eventually."

Noah agreed. If they could find each other through the chaos of the old timeline, they'd do it again in this one.

"So your plan is to have Stiles invite Jackson over to explain the thing with Scott's asthma, introduce yourself as his father, explain about werewolves, and then introduce him to his mate when we find Ethan."

"Pretty much," Peter said smugly. "Jackson learns he's a werewolf and that I'm his father and that being gay is not a problem, and the rest will take care of itself."

"Yeah," Noah said, not even bothering to hide his sarcasm, "because all of our schemes go exactly according to plan."

"Yeah," Peter agreed with a soft laugh.

~*~

"When I'm old enough I'm going to kill them all."

"Aiden, don't talk like that."

"Why not," Aiden said angrily. "It's true."

"True or not," Ethan whispered, "talking like that is going to get us killed."

Aiden was ready to argue that dead was better than being hungry and hurt all the time but the front gates to the compound exploded open and dozens of heavily armed men barged in. Aiden pulled his twin closer and shuffled them deeper into their hiding space.

  
  



	6. Chapter 6

"We have a problem."

"Rafe?" Noah asked, checking the caller ID on his phone. It had come up as "unknown."

"Yeah," the guy said, his tone subdued, his exhaustion obvious. "I finally gathered enough evidence to raid that cult you were worried about." He stopped to breathe, and Noah felt dread crawl up his spine. "By the time we got there the place was empty. I don't know how they knew we were coming or who might have tipped them off, but the evidence suggests there was a whole lot of violence and then a hurried exit."

Noah ran a hand down his face. "Violence?" he asked, needing to know more but not wanting to ask a question that would make Rafe think he was crazy. "Domestic violence type stuff?" Noah winced. That didn't really describe anything at all but it was still better than asking if the place was covered in claw marks.

"More like a gang attack," Rafe said, striving for a professional tone and just sounding like an asshole. "As in shells and casings and blood everywhere."

"But no bodies?"

"No bodies," Rafe confirmed.

"Do we have a timeline?"

"No more than three hours before we got there."

"And you raided when?"

"Sunrise," Rafe said, sounding angry. "Do you have a reason for the interrogation, Stilinski? If you know something about this, now is the time to tell me."

"I don't, Rafe," Noah admitted. He suspected, but he knew nothing for sure. "I just… Peter will ask for details. He's really worried about his cousins."

"Yeah, well it seems he had a reason to be." Rafe sighed tiredly. "If I hear anything I'll let you know."

"Same," Noah said, already planning his and Peter's visit to the compound as he wished Rafe McCall luck.

If the pack had been attacked by hunters there was a really good chance everyone was dead.

He needed to call Peter, but first he dialed Natalie Martin.

"Nat, this is going to sound like a really weird question, but did Lydia wake up screaming this morning?

~*~

"I'm sorry you got stuck babysitting me," Stiles said when Derek passed through the living area headed for the kitchen.

"Whatever," Derek mumbled, not looking in Stiles direction. "I'm ordering pizza for dinner."

"Okay. Um… thanks." It would have been nice if Derek had asked what Stiles wanted on his pizza but he wasn't going to complain. Stiles liked most toppings as long as they weren't those furry little fish things. Eeew.

But when the pizzas arrived Stiles was very surprised.

"You got my favorite."

"Of course I did," Derek said, giving him a weird look.

"But how did you know what I liked?"

"I just do," Derek said.

"Is that a werewolf thing?" Stiles asked, fascinated by the idea.

"Yeah, whatever," Derek said, gathering everything he would need to eat his pizza in his room alone.

"I didn't read anything about that in the books Peter has been loaning me."

"What books?" Derek asked, apparently annoyed for no good reason. Ugh, teenagers.

"The ones from the library. The ones that smell like mold and things I don't want to think about."

Derek shook his head. "Are human noses that useless?"

Stiles gritted his teeth and glared at Derek. The teenager just rolled his eyes.

"They all smell like smoke, not mold."

"The ones I've been reading all smell like mold. All of them."

"Sure, whatever," Derek said dismissively, turning to leave the room again.

"I can prove it," Stiles said, abandoning his pizza to run into the room he'd been using the past four nights. He grabbed the book off the table and ran back in the living area. "See, mold."

"Where did you get this?" Derek asked, turning the book over very carefully.

"Peter keeps leaving them for me to read."

"Don't think so," Derek said, gingerly opening the pages. "This book is at least two hundred years old. There is no way in hell Uncle Peter would loan the original of any book that old. He had copies made specifically so we wouldn't damage the older books."

"But he keeps leaving them for me."

"Have you ever seen him leave them?" Derek asked, sounding all mad and stuff.

Stiles hesitated. "Well, no, but I just thought that was because he didn't want my dad to worry."

"This book isn't even in English. What is this language? Ancient Sumerian?"

"Ancient Sumerian was used thousands of years ago," Stiles said belligerently. "And you said that book is only a couple hundred years old."

"Whatever," Derek said, rolling his eyes. Stiles was really beginning to hate that word. "What language is it? Or have you just been looking at the pictures?"

"Pictures?" Stiles asked, outraged. "That book doesn't have pictures." A few diagrams and a sketch or two, but no pictures. Sheesh. "That's Romanian. And Romanian is the closest living language to Latin, so of course I can read it."

"You can read Latin?" Derek asked in that same disbelieving tone.

Stiles was about to yell "hell, yeah" until it occurred to him that he actually _couldn't_ read Latin or Romanian. "Um…"

Stiles scent must have changed because Derek dropped the snark and moved closer. "You okay, kid?"

"Not a kid," Stiles said automatically. "And, maybe, kind of… no." He sat on the coffee table, glad to have something underneath him. "Why would Peter give me books in a language I don't read?"

"I don't think Peter has been leaving these books for you," Derek said, "but that leads us to the question of who the fu—fudge has been leaving them?"

"I don't know," Stiles said. His first thought was to contact Peter via telepathy, his second to call his dad on his cellphone, but he did neither. His dad and Peter were busy trying to find out if the kids Peter had been trying to adopt were still alive after their pack was attacked by hunters. "Um… Maybe it's me."

"You?" Derek asked. "Because you're a spark?"

Stiles shrugged. It was a better explanation than someone sneaking into his room and replacing the books each time he finished one.

"Shit, okay," Derek said, looking worried. "If it is you we could have a really big problem."

"What do you mean?"

"Every time you use magic like that—moving something from one place to another—it sort of leaves a trail, kind of like a warp trail."

"Warp trail? Star trek?" Stiles asked. Figured the guy would be a trekker and not a Star Wars fan.

"Yeah," Derek said, blushing slightly. "The warp drive leaves a faint emissions trail and a starship with the right equipment can identify and trace it back to the source."

"So what you're saying is?" Stiles asked, wondering how they'd gotten onto geek subjects like space travel.

"What I'm saying is…" Derek gave him a very frustrated frown. "I'm saying that if you use magic like that it may lead the wrong people right to us."

Yeah, okay, that wasn't good.

~*~

"Hunters," Peter said the moment they stopped the car near the outside of the compound that had once been home to more than fifty werewolves.

"Wolfsbane?"

"All over the place," Peter said, ignoring the risk to himself. He had far too much experience with the stuff, but he also knew a tiny risk of secondary-poisoning wasn't going to deter him. If Aiden and Ethan were dead he wanted to know exactly who was behind it.

"Do you think they're all dead?" Noah asked, sliding his hand into Peter's to slow him down.

"There's enough blood in the air—human and werewolf—to suggest a massacre, yes."

Noah swallowed hard. "This didn't happen in the old timeline."

"No it didn't," Peter agreed. "It's a pretty safe bet that whatever we did, whoever we alerted accidentally or otherwise, were unaware of this pack the first time around."

"Fuck," Noah said, his grief leaking into his scent. Peter knew how he felt, but in all honesty his only concern was for Aiden and Ethan. Knowing that the twins were no longer being victimized was small comfort when they'd had so much life left to live.

"Can you follow any scents?"

"No," Peter growled in a low voice. "The blood is everywhere."

"Well I guess there's nothing more we can do here," Noah said, urging Peter back toward the car.

But a soft sound cut through the quiet compound.

Peter stopped, listening for it again.

"It's okay," Peter said to whoever was listening. They sounded young and frightened and had probably just witnessed the massacre of everyone they'd ever known.

"Survivor?" Noah mouthed silently, not risking talking over any possible sound that could give them a direction.

Peter nodded. "My name is Peter Hale. I represent the Hale pack alpha and I'm authorized to offer you asylum." The whimper was a little louder this time, but it was overlaid by another voice trying to shush them.

"I'm Peter's mate," Noah said, using his professional deputy's tone, and making Peter melt a little in the process. They'd never really labeled their relationship, but Peter was grateful to Noah for using the word that would help a couple of traumatized survivors feel more comfortable. "And I'm a deputy sheriff in Beacon Hills. I can promise Derek Hale will protect you."

"We can wait in the car if you want to discuss your options," Peter said, tamping down his own impatience. He wanted to be far away from this place. It had the pervasive scent of longterm fear and it was very unsettling.

"We'll be safe?" a young boy asked, his voice seeming to come from under one of the dilapidated buildings. Peter suspected that everything would have been burned to the ground if the feds hadn't interrupted the hunters' plans.

"We'll protect you," Peter said, not silly enough to promise anything he couldn't guarantee. He'd die protecting his pack, but he had no control over what happened after that. "And give you a home and a pack."

"Okay," the boy said, the noise of scratching and dirt moving reaching Peter's ears before a dirty head of hair popped through a small gap in the building's foundations. "We're coming out."

"How many is 'we'?" Peter asked curiously.

"Three," the kid said, wriggling his skinny, pale body through the tiny gap. He gave Noah and Peter a worried look before turning back to reach his hand into the hole. They both gasped in surprise when the second werewolf to emerge was a young girl. Well the dirty dress the child was wearing suggested she was a girl. She was barely the size of a toddler, her clothes and hair as filthy and ragged as the young boy. She at least didn't seem to be covered in old bruises the way the boy was.

The third werewolf was identical to the first, his face and clothes just as dirty but it was obvious the two boys were twins.

"Ethan?" Peter asked, trying the more co-operative of the two from the old timeline.

The kid looked shocked. His brother moved to stand aggressively in front of him and the small child. "How do you know my brother's name?"

"The same way I know yours, Aiden," Peter said, losing patience. His wolf side hated this place and wanted to just grab these kids and take them home.

"Peter," Noah said, the rebuke almost too soft to travel to the children's ears. Peter's only excuse for being so curt was that the scent of blood was starting to freak him out. Yeah, he was never admitting that out loud.

"Your father was a distant cousin of mine." It was almost the truth. Werewolves were all essentially related, and of course, Peter had made sure to _collect_ the paperwork needed to prove it. "I've been trying to find you since I learned of your parents' deaths."

"Why?" Aiden asked suspiciously.

"So that we could offer you a better life," Noah said, stepping a little closer and dropping to one knee to talk to the little girl. "What's your name, sweetie?"

"Lala," she said shyly, sticking her thumb into her mouth despite the digit being completely coated in dirt.

"Amelia," Ethan corrected gently, giving Noah a tremulous smile. "She's our little sister."

Well that would make the adoption process a bit simpler.

"'m free," Amelia said around her thumb.

"Three?" Noah asked, smiling at the little girl. "You're three years old?"

Ethan nodded when she looked to him for guidance.

"U-huh," she said, her eyelids drooping tiredly even as her tummy rumbled.

"Are you hungry?" Noah asked. Again the little girl looked to her brother for guidance. Ethan shook his head urgently and Aiden bristled angrily.

Peter's heart broke for all three children when he realized what that meant.

He took a moment to be glad their abusers were dead. Peter didn't have time to dig the bastards up, resurrect them, and kill them again, so he'd just be grateful they weren't around to hurt these kids anymore.

"Let's just get everyone in the car," Peter said. "I'd rather be in Beacon Hills."

Noah nodded. "Will you come home with us?"

The boys were surprised to be given a choice. The little girl nodded her preference.

"We can stay together?" Ethan asked.

"You won't split us up," Aiden stated.

"You'll be family," Peter said, again avoiding making a promise he had no idea if he could keep. He'd already filed all of the right paperwork to take custody of the boys as soon as they were found. He paid his lawyers very well, so he had no qualms about waking them to get the process repeated as soon as possible for Amelia. And he'd fight for these kids with everything he had, but if the old timeline had taught them anything it was that life was not fucking fair, not for anyone.

"How big is your pack?" Aiden asked.

"Right now it's very small," Noah said, not bothering to differentiate between Derek's pack and their own. "Me and Peter, Derek—he's the alpha—and my son, Stiles. He's nine."

"What's Derek like?" Ethan asked. Peter heard the questions behind it. _Can we trust him? Will he hurt us? Will he abuse us and deny us food the way our last alpha did?_

"Derek is an incredible young man," Noah said. "He's fifteen and I know he'll be the best alpha he can be."

"Your alpha is fifteen?" Aiden asked skeptically. Technically Peter's alpha was only nine but they didn't need to get into the details right now.

Noah nodded. "He inherited the alpha spark when his sister was murdered by a hunter a few weeks ago."

Peter was impressed by Noah's ability to tell the truth while still leaving out a whole lot of fucked-up details.

"So he…" Aiden hesitated for the first time. "So he… He doesn't know how to be an _Alpha_ just yet?"

"If you're asking will he abuse you the way your old alpha did," Noah said in a kind tone, "the answer is no, absolutely not."

"How will we live?" Aiden asked. Ethan seemed annoyed by his brother's continued hostility but he didn't interrupt. "How is he going to provide for us when he should be in school?"

"Derek inherited a whole lot of wealth to go with his alpha eyes," Peter said smugly. "I assure you money is not an issue."

"Okay," Aiden said warily. "But if we don't like it, we're leaving."

"Try it for a couple months," Noah said carefully, "and if you don't like it then we'll find a safe home for you that you do like."

"Pinky p'omise?" Amelia asked.

"Absolutely," Peter agreed offering the girl his little finger.

That was one promise he knew he could keep.

  
  



	7. Chapter 7

"How did you know Lydia was having nightmares?"

Noah glanced around the reception area of the sheriff's office, grateful to realize the area was empty. He hated the graveyard shift but at least the undermanned office gave them a little bit of privacy.

"There are a lot of things I need to explain," Noah said, wondering where the fuck to start. "Here is probably not the best place."

Natalie gave him a furious look. "You call me out of the blue to ask me if my daughter woke screaming the night before last and then you fob me off because you're too busy to explain how you know that. What the hell did you expect me to do?"

"I'm sorry," Noah said immediately. He should have found time to call Natalie back, or maybe he shouldn't have called at all. He'd just been hoping that the werewolves had escaped the attack and that he'd be able to reassure Peter that Aiden and Ethan were okay before they'd gone looking for them. Of course, in retrospect knowing that Lydia had woken, screaming in terror from a nightmare of horrendous violence and death hadn't helped at all. "I shouldn't have involved you."

"Involved me in what?" Natalie asked through gritted teeth.

Yeah, Noah should have expected that. Lydia got her stubborn streak from her mother. Noah had known that for a very long time.

"Nat," Noah said, glancing at his watch. "I'm off shift in two hours. Can I drop your place by on my way home?"

"I'll be at work," Natalie said through gritted teeth. "It's a school day."

"Oh," Noah said before he realized how awful that must sound coming from the parent of a school-aged child. Natalie raised an eyebrow, clearly unimpressed.

"Where is Stiles?"

He didn't appreciate the tone, but he was also glad to know that Claudia's best friend was still looking out for her son.

"We stayed at Peter's last night. He'll drop Stiles at school on time."

"Oh," Natalie said, echoing the surprised sound Noah had made earlier. "So the…um. The rumors about you and Peter Hale are true?"

"I'm unaware of the rumors," Noah said, not sure if he wanted to know, "but yes, we're in a relationship."

"Were you… when…" She shook her head. "Sorry, that's none of my business."

"It's okay," Noah said when he finally deciphered what Natalie had been trying to ask. "My relationship with Peter is very new. We were friends but it grew into something more only recently."

Natalie nodded and gave him a soft smile. "I'm happy for you. I know Claude would be too."

"Yeah," Noah agreed, remembering the woman he'd loved so fiercely. It wasn't a surprise to him that he loved Peter just as deeply. When he loved he was an all-in kind of guy.

"After school?" Natalie asked, bringing them back to their original topic. "You'll explain?"

"I'll do my best," Noah promised.

~*~

Peter was exhausted.

It had been late evening by the time they'd returned from the compound where they'd found Aiden, Ethan, and Amelia. Derek had been incredible. He'd offered his new packmates reassurance and assistance and then spent several hours patiently answering their questions.

Stiles had wanted to help and—perhaps considering him to be less dangerous, being both younger and a human—Aiden and Ethan had let him play silly games with Amelia while they spoke with Derek.

The boys had continued to eye Peter and Noah warily, but they'd seemed to accept Derek's assurances that they weren't in danger.

Peter had made a midnight trip to the local variety store—yeah, he was not a fan…and also kind of a snob—to grab some basic clothes and essential supplies, and then he'd spent most of the night online ordering everything Derek's three new betas might need.

And dresses, lots and lots of dresses.

Because Amelia was adorable and she'd thanked Peter profusely for the simple cotton nightdress he'd given her as if it was a shiny new ball gown from a fairy tale. Goddess, he wanted to resurrect their old alpha, chain him to a pole, and then let the bastard starve to death, again and again and again.

Once he'd gotten past the need for vengeance, he'd spent the rest of the night gathering and collating the information he would need to adopt Amelia as well as her brothers. Noah had been called into work—despite being on sick leave and still injured—and had left to man the front desk for the graveyard shift. If he got hurt again Peter just might forget why he shouldn't rip the sheriff in half. Animal attacks were common in Beacon Hills after all. What was one more?

He sighed as he set the idea of bloody vengeance from his mind. Noah might never forgive him if he started going after people who were really just very bad at their job.

"Peter?" Stiles asked as he wandered into the kitchen and headed for the coffee pot. The kid had found research suggesting coffee was helpful for kids with ADHD and Peter wasn't about to argue. "You okay?"

"I am," Peter said out loud. Telepathically he answered, "I will be."

"Me, too," Stiles said following Peter's lead of answering politely out loud. He added telepathically, "Is it wrong to be glad they're dead?"

Peter didn't need to ask who "they" were. He stuck to telepathy, not wanting to upset the other werewolves in the apartment. "I guess there are people who might think that's wrong, but it's natural to want to protect innocent victims. I'm glad Aiden, Ethan, and Amelia have a chance at a better life now."

"Me too," Stiles repeated, this time silently. "I think they protected Amelia from the worst of it."

"I think so too."

"And I think Derek is going to be a really great alpha."

"Absolutely," Peter agreed.

"Did he have a chance to mention what we discovered last night?" Stiles asked telepathically even as he left the kitchen and headed into his room to get ready for school.

"His pack is top priority right now."

"And it should be," Stiles was quick to agree, "but well we discovered something last night that could be a really big problem."

Peter could hear his alpha shuffling on his feet, obviously having left the room deliberately to try and hide his agitation.

"I thought you were leaving books for me to read, but… um… Derek said that you wouldn't give me the um… original copies because they're so old and could get damaged."

Peter's heart rate raised alarmingly.

"Stiles, I haven't been leaving any books for you to read. Where are they coming from?"

"We think… Me and Derek that is… We think…that…um…"

"Stiles," Peter growled telepathically, fear for his alpha and the rest of his family's safety overriding his patience.

"Derek thinks—and I do too—that I might be using magic to pull them from wherever they are."

"Shit," Peter whispered out loud. He knew exactly why Derek was worried. That sort of magic left a trail, an echo that could be traced by other magic users, fucking druids included.

"Do you have one of the books still?"

"Yeah," Stiles said, opening the door of his room and making his way back to the kitchen. He dropped his school bag beside the fridge and placed a book on the table. The smell was offensive.

"How did I not smell this?" he asked, sticking to telepathy for the moment. The question was rhetorical, so he was a little surprised when Stiles answered.

"That may have been me too. I thought you were giving them to me without my dad knowing so I kind of made sure it was, you know, _hidden_."

"Okay," Peter said, finally realizing that Derek's heart rate had risen in response to his own. Derek couldn't hear their telepathic conversation, but he was probably even more hyper-vigilant now than he'd been since the fire. "Derek, it's fine," Peter said out loud. "We're okay. Stiles and I are just discussing the books he's been reading."

"Okay," Derek said clearly enough to be heard across the apartment but seemingly quiet enough to not wake his packmates. Peter was relieved to hear his nephew's panicked heartbeat slow.

"There's more," Stiles admitted, still speaking telepathically. "I realized last night that none of the books I've been reading are in English. I can identify the languages and I can read what they say, but I don't actually know Latin or Romanian or Greek or… Well, you get the drift."

"I do," Peter said, trying to reconcile the immense pride he had for his tiny alpha and the terrifying dread swirling through him. He tried to hide that part from his alpha by smirking. "Have you learned anything useful?"

"Plenty," Stiles said, grinning in response. "The best part is that every time I get a new book it covers the exact subject I was wanting to research." He cocked his head to the side and smirked. "But I guess that was me too."

Peter shook his head slightly, smiled, and decided that pride was currently his strongest emotion.

"So last night when I was waiting for you and dad to get home this is the book that arrived."

"I don't know this language. Care to translate?"

"Oh, yeah," Stiles said, carefully opening the book to a certain page. It had a couple of drawings, or perhaps they were diagrams, that took up most of the page. "This basically translates to 'How to hide your spark.'"

"Seriously?" Peter said, scrutinizing the designs that he was pretty sure he'd never seen before. He understood basic runes and a few other protection symbols, but these were nothing like them.

"I trust it," Stiles said. "And I'm sure it's me, my spark, calling these books to me. I'm not sensing any other magic around me."

"You can sense other magic users?"

"Of course," Stiles said as if it was unfathomable that others couldn't.

"Anyone I should be worried about?"

"Just that creepy vet who gave my dad that purple—" Stiles stopped talking, froze for a moment, and then shook his head in apparent disbelief. "That's the smell! That has been bugging me since yesterday. What was that stuff anyway?"

"The purple oil Deaton gave your dad the day of the fire?"

"Yeah," Stiles said, "I think my new math teacher uses it as perfume or something."

"New math teacher?"

  
  



	8. Chapter 8

"You need to call Stile's school and let them know he's sick."

Yeah, that was definitely not the phone call he'd wanted right after a visit from Natalie Martin.

"Why?" he asked, trying to stay calm. If Stiles really was ill Peter would be far more frantic. He'd been near-hysterical the one time Stiles had caught the flu in the other timeline. In retrospect that should have been the moment Noah realized who Peter really considered his alpha.

"He can help Amelia and the twins adjust to their new environment."

"Nice try," Noah said, shaking his head even though Peter couldn't see him. "Now tell me the real reason."

"He may have been accidentally doing magic that could lead others to us," he said quickly. "But we have a plan, or a solution, or maybe…"

Noah almost wanted to smile at his lover's uncharacteristic ambivalence but his concern for his family overrode the thought.

"Peter," Noah said in that tone he knew affected his lover in ways that usually led them to sexy times. "Slow down and explain this to me."

"How do you feel about tattoos?"

"On my son?"

Peter's hesitation was answer enough.

"I finish my shift in less than an hour. Do not do _anything_ until I get home. Are we clear?"

"Crystal," Peter said through gritted teeth.

Yeah, Noah was overreacting.

"Sorry," he said immediately, wishing he could pull Peter into his arms. Damn he hated himself for jumping to worst case scenarios when Peter was involved. He was hurting the man he loved and it was over things that happened long before he'd understood the werewolf and the man he truly was. "Peter, I… I know you're keeping Stiles safe. I know I'm overreacting." He blew out a deep breath and tried to explain. "I was already on edge when you called."

"Everything okay?" Peter asked, showing a concern for Noah that Noah probably didn't deserve after his over-the-top reaction to the words "tattoo" and "Stiles" in the same sentence.

"I had a visit from Natalie Martin."

"You knew about the massacre because you called and found out Lydia had screamed when the compound was attacked," Peter guessed.

"Yeah," Noah admitted.

"You could have told me," Peter said quietly.

"I was seeking reassurance that they boys were still alive. Learning they were most likely dead wouldn't have stopped you going to the compound." Noah swallowed, trying to dislodge the sick feeling he'd had ever since seeing that place. "And I'm really glad my information was wrong. How are the kids doing?"

"They're unnaturally quiet," Peter admitted in a worried tone, "but after what they've been through..."

"Yeah," Noah said, again trying to tamp down the nausea that rose any time he remembered what those kids had been through. It also reminded him to track down Isaac and to check if Boyd's little sister was missing or if that hadn't happened yet. "Peter, I love you. I'm sorry I overreacted."

"It's okay," Peter said in a soft tone.

"It's really not," Noah admitted. "Some days I feel overwhelmed by all we know."

"And everything we don't," Peter added.

Noah sighed. "Yeah, that fucking butterfly effect."

"I don't suppose now is a good time to mention that Stiles new math teacher smells of wolfsbane."

Noah was still trying to not overreact to that when one of the other deputies dropped a pamphlet onto his desk. He barely glanced at it until he realized what it was.

Holy fuck.

"Unfortunately I can go one better," Noah said, his throat tightening with anxiety. "A new candidate has nominated to run for sheriff."

"And do we have a name?" Peter asked, trying to hide how nervous he was by almost singing the words like a smart-ass.

Unfortunately Noah knew exactly how to shut him up.

"Yeah, it's your Disney Princess."

~*~

Derek grinned with relief when Amelia woke and started to wriggle off the bed. Her brothers both grumbled but only woke enough to make sure the little girl was heading toward Derek. Apparently somewhere between the unlimited food supply and the warm baths and clean clothes Aiden and Ethan had decided that Derek wasn't a danger to them.

Yet.

He had no illusions about this situation. It would take just one tiny little thing to spook the brothers and they'd grab their sister and run. Derek wouldn't ever trust a stranger again after what Kate had done to him, so he could imagine how hard it would be for three children who'd been abused by the very people they should have been able to trust to protect them.

"I firsty," Amelia said, climbing onto Derek's lap and then rubbing her eyes tiredly.

"Juice or milk?" he asked, mentally running through a list of the things currently stored in their refrigerator. With five werewolves in the house they were probably going to need to invest in a bigger one. Then again, they were going to need more room once the siblings relaxed a little more and started going to school again. From their discussions last night, Derek was pretty sure the boys stopped going to the local school when their parents had died. Their old alpha had beaten and starved them and called it "homeschooling."

Derek was even more determined to get the boys settled and into the local school so that they would have access to other adults they could learn to trust.

"Wa's joos?" Amelia asked, frowning at Derek as if he'd made the word up.

"It comes from fruit. They squeeze it at the shop and then we buy it and drink it." Yeah he sucked at explaining things to little kids but he silently promised himself he'd get better at it.

Amelia screwed up her nose and shook her head. "Milk," she decided, nodding her head imperiously.

"Milk, _please_ ," Ethan mumbled. "Don't forget your manners, Lala."

Amelia harrumphed but did as she was told. "Milk, peas. No joos."

"Okay," Derek said. "You wait here with your brothers and I'll be right back."

Amelia's bottom lip began to tremble and at first Derek thought she was just trying to convince him to take her with him, but then he looked over at the boys and realized Aiden and Ethan were both awake.

"We'll all go," Aiden said, rolling out of bed as if he hadn't just woken up. Derek hated that it was probably a survival skill from his old life.

"Come on, Lala," Ethan said, lifting the little girl into his arms. She clung to him like a koala, nodding to words Derek couldn't hear as they walked out of the room.

"It's what Mom said," Aiden whispered, not exactly furious with Derek but clearly upset, "that day."

"I'm sorry," Derek said, not needing Aiden to explain out loud that it was the last thing their mother said to Amelia the day she and their father died. "I'll do better."

Aiden seemed both shocked that Derek would apologize and completely flabbergasted at the idea of him trying harder.

"I know trust is earned," Derek said. "And that it takes time. I just ask that you give me and Uncle Peter a chance."

"Yeah," Aiden said after a moment of contemplation. "Do you really have juice?"

"Orange, for sure," Derek said, following Aiden out of the room and toward the kitchen. "Apple, maybe half a bottle. There might be some cranberry left in the fridge, but there is definitely another bottle in the pantry if we need it."

Aiden grinned. "Hear that, Ethan? Cranberry. Your favorite."

Ethan made a happy noise and Amelia giggled with him.

And Aiden turned to Derek and whispered two words he hadn't expected to hear so soon.

"Thanks, Alpha."

~*~

Stiles was freaking the fuck out.

His dad was not going to let him tattoo both arms, most of his torso, and a symbol on his throat. He'd known that even when he'd found the answer in the book, but somehow he'd convinced himself it was all going to work out. What the fuck had he been thinking? Hell, if he turned up to school suddenly covered in tattoos the teachers would probably call child services and have him removed from his "unsuitable" home.

"Calm down, Alpha," Peter whispered into his mind. "We'll find a way."

Stiles rolled his eyes and concentrated on his breathing. He did not want to have a panic attack right now. He sensed the werewolves walking down the hallway before he heard them, so he had enough time to grab another cup of coffee and take a seat at the breakfast table before they stepped through the doorway.

Ethan hesitated on the threshold, but entered when Peter nodded and waved them in.

"You don't need to ask for permission," Peter said in a kind, no-nonsense tone. "Not in your own home. Okay?"

Ethan nodded and let Amelia down when she noticed Stiles.

"Tiles!"

"Close enough," Stiles said with a soft laugh. "Good morning, Princess Amelia."

"Not a p'incess," she said with a giggle.

"Are you sure?" Stiles teased.

"Yup," she said, climbing onto the chair next to Stiles. "Not a p'incess. I'm a werewolf!"

"I know," Stiles said and then dropped his voice to a whisper, "but maybe don't tell anyone else."

"Noah?" she asked, glancing around the room for Stiles's dad.

"It's okay to tell him. He knows, but maybe keep it as _our_ secret, yeah?"

"Yeah," she said, seeming happy to follow Stiles suggestion. He glanced at Derek, worried that he'd overstepped the boundaries of his alpha…hood, or whatever it was called.

But instead of getting another one of those furious glares, Derek was looking at him with a soft smile. He didn't say anything, but it made Stiles feel happy and all gooey inside.

At least until his dad got home an hour later.

  
  



	9. Chapter 9

"These need to be tattooed onto your body?" Dad asked, still apparently trying to grasp the concept. "And they'll hide you from other magic users?"

"Yes," Peter answered, pronouncing his words very carefully which usually meant he was feeling uncomfortable. "Think of it like glowing in the dark. The tattoos will remove that glow and he'll just seem like an average human."

"Except for the fact that he'll be a nine-year-old covered in tattoos." Stiles could tell his dad was upset but he was trying very hard to sound concerned, not angry.

"They can be flesh toned," Peter suggested.

"It might work at first, but if he gets sunburned or ill, how will you hide them then?"

"We'll find a way," Peter said, quietly, confidently.

Stiles believed him. He'd only known the man for three-and-a-bit weeks, but somehow it felt like he knew him way better than that. Maybe it was the telepathy thing, or maybe when Peter teased Stiles by calling him "alpha" he wasn't actually teasing.

And it explained why he'd called for Stiles when he'd been severely injured.

Stiles was really glad werewolves had that freaky healing ability.

"I can heal them," he said suddenly, "like a werewolf." He closed his eyes so that he could better remember the page he'd read on tattoos and werewolves. "They'll still be there, under the skin, but nobody will be able to see them."

Peter gave him a wide smile, but Dad still seemed worried.

"You hate needles and faint at the sight of blood."

Peter raised an eyebrow as if he hadn't known that.

But Dad wasn't wrong. The last time Stiles had gotten an injection he'd screwed his eyes closed so tight that he'd seen stars and had managed to pass out just from the feel of a little spot of blood rolling down his arm. Yeah, maybe he could pass out and sleep through the whole thing. That might work.

"A tattoo this intricate will take hours," Dad said, "and probably more than one session."

Okay, Stiles was feeling just a little bit sick. "Hours?"

"Not to mention that we have no idea where to find a tattoo artist who'll tattoo a nine-year-old."

"Religious reasons?" Peter asked. "It works for homeschoolers."

"Not funny," Dad said, glancing at the twins which made Peter go pale.

"Yeah, not funny," Peter agreed.

"Will the tattoos stop you from using your magic?" Dad asked, looking at the book with a sad frown.

"Sort of," Stiles said, pointing at a couple of circles that kind of looked like buttons. "To use my magic I'd need to press a finger to each of these."

"So it would stop you from using magic accidentally."

"Yep," Stiles said, thinking of the thing that happened with Scott. "But um… I probably still would have healed Scott if I'd known what I was doing."

"It's okay," Dad said, pulling him into a hug. "I'm glad Scott won't have to deal with severe asthma for the rest of his life."

"Yeah," Peter agreed seeming far more comfortable now. "Saved us a lot of potential problems."

"Huh?"

Noah rolled his eyes at Peter.

"So does the spell mention anything about needing special ink or ingredients?"

"No," Stiles said reading over the instructions again. It was kind of weird now that he knew the words were in a language he didn't know but could somehow read. "Just ordinary ink."

And then that's when he got the best idea ever!

~*~

"I'm not going to be much help with this," Noah said, staring at the array of pens Peter had collected from around the apartment. Neither of them had any idea what Stiles was specifically looking for, but if finding the right pen meant avoiding hours of tattooing, Noah was all for it.

"Eureka!" Stiles announced as he drew a few more lines just to be sure. "This is the one."

"Of course it's the one," Peter grumbled. "It's my favorite pen."

"It doesn't look expensive," Stiles said, squinting at the pen when he lifted it to within an inch of his eyeball. Noah could only hope that the kid who could trip over his own feet wouldn't somehow poke an eye out while he was gone.

"It's very expensive," Peter said in a snooty voice. Even Noah could tell he was lying.

"Whatever," Stiles said, imitating Derek's favorite word perfectly. He ruined the effect by giggling like the nine-year-old he was, but it was a horrifying flashback—or should that be a flashforward—of the future.

Noah interrupted before his son changed directions and started asking a million questions about Peter's choice of favorite pen and why. "I told Natalie Martin that I'd drop by this afternoon." He bit his lower lip with his side teeth and grimaced. "I owe her an explanation for that phone call."

"Invite them over," Peter said, clearly wanting to keep his family and pack close.

Noah tilted his head toward where Stiles was painstakingly copying the designs from the book onto his arm.

"Um… Next time," Peter added with a soft laugh.

~*~

"I don't appreciate your humor, Noah. This isn't funny."

"I'm not trying to be funny," Noah said, following Natalie's gaze to where her ten-year-old daughter was sitting on the swing reading a college-level chemistry book. "I'm being very serious when I tell you your daughter is a banshee. Just like her grandmother."

"Her grandmother is insane, not a banshee."

"She's still alive?" Noah asked, realizing as he said it that he'd never confirmed when Lydia's grandmother had been murdered, only where. "She's in Eichen House?"

"How did you know?" Natalie asked, looking shocked and maybe a little bit terrified.

"Lucky guess," Noah said with a shrug. "It's kind of the only one in the area."

"The only one in the area I can afford." Nat shrugged. "The divorce was messy," she offered by way of explanation as to why she was left caring for her ex-husband's mother

Noah nodded and pretended to remember Natalie was recently divorced. He'd never been sure when or why thanks to his own wife's death around the same time. It was then that Noah finally realized Natalie had lost her husband and her best friend in the same year. And in the old timeline she'd never seriously dated again.

"I promise you, Nat. I'm just trying to keep you and Lydia safe. Her grandmother too if you'll let us."

"You're going to take over the care of a severely disturbed woman?" Natalie asked in a flat, disbelieving tone.

"I realize it's complicated," Noah said, already worrying that Brunski was planning the woman's "suicide." Now that he knew there was someone else they could save—and holy fuck, they'd forgotten about Meredith—he didn't want to waste a moment.

"I don't think _complicated_ begins to cover it." Natalie gave him a worried look. "What has Peter been saying? He's one of the Hales and the whole town knows they were a weird family." She winced, perhaps realizing how tactless that was. "Noah, it's not like you to believe in all this nonsense."

Noah wanted to laugh at how much that used to be true but he figured it wouldn't do much for his credibility. He tried using cold hard facts instead.

"Banshees scream when someone dies. An event like the one that woke Lydia yesterday morning would have sent flashes of the violence and destruction into her dreams."

"Let's say I believe you," Natalie said in a tone that basically said she didn't. "How do we stop it? How do I protect my daughter from the insanity that is killing her grandmother?"

"Assuring them both that they're not imagining what they see is a good start."

"I'm not going to tell my little girl that her dreams are actually real when they're not."

"Nat—"

"No," Natalie said, backing away from him. "Even if they were, I wouldn't tell her."

Noah rubbed a hand roughly over his face. "In most other circumstances," he said, "I'd agree with you, but Peter and I learned something today that is particularly concerning."

Natalie raised an eyebrow and waited belligerently.

"A family of hunters have just moved into town."

"So what? We have hunters coming through all the time. Hunting season brings money into our town. It's good for the economy."

"For ordinary hunters I'd agree with you." Noah wished it wasn't necessary, but without the facts Natalie was going to write his fears off as delusions. "This family, the Argents, they hunt the supernatural. People like Peter and Derek and Lydia."

"You're telling me there's a family of serial killers in town and nobody has arrested them. Aren't you a sheriff's deputy?"

"It's not quite that simple," Noah said, growing frustrated.

"It never is," Natalie said dismissively.

"Okay." Noah sighed, not quite admitting defeat, but seeing no way to win his argument right now. "Ask Lydia about her dream, the one that woke her yesterday morning a few hours before sunrise. She will describe a survivalist compound in an isolated location about three hours from here." Noah swallowed, not really wanting to remember the details. "She will describe a fight between heavily armed soldiers dressed all in black and people with claws. She'll describe glowing eyes and fangs and absolute terror as almost all of them are slaughtered like rabid dogs."

Natalie shivered and turned away.

"I'll ask her," she said in a tiny voice, "and when she describes something completely different I'll ask you to stay the hell away. Don't go putting crazy ideas in my daughter's head."

Noah had already turned away, unable to offer any words of comfort, when Lydia started screaming.

~*~

"You've been gone a long time," Peter said when he answered Noah's phone call.

"Yeah, sorry," Noah said, the pain of his bruised ribs very clear in the tightness of his voice. "I took a detour via Eichen House."

"What the hell for?"

"Tonight was the night Brunski killed Lydia's grandmother in the old timeline."

"How did you remember that?"

They'd spent the weeks since the timeline reset writing down every detail they could remember. The date of Lorraine Martin's murder had not been one of them.

"I didn't remember," he said. "I don't think I ever knew the exact date, but Lydia started screaming while I was talking to her mother."

"Were you able to stop Brunski?"

"Yeah, we arrived in time. It helped that I was able to _accidentally_ unearth the tapes of all the murders he'd committed previously." Noah sighed. "I have several more hours of paperwork and procedure in front of me, but this might at least force an investigation into Eichen House."

"We should probably take the Hellhound out of the freezer in the basement first."

"Damn, I hadn't even given the guy a thought. What was his name?"

"Halwyn, I think. We know the Wild Hunt and the Anuk-ite will be heading our way in a few years, so it's probably a good idea to thaw him out and get him caught up."

"Yeah, I'll look into it," Noah said, adding one more name to his mental list. "I checked for Meredith but she wasn't on the patient register."

"She might not be at Eichen yet," Peter suggested. "She was in the hospital with me when I was burned. I have no idea exactly when since I spent most of the next six years in a coma, but maybe she won't end up institutionalized without my influence."

"She's still a banshee," Noah said, dropping his voice low enough that even with werewolf hearing Peter barely heard him. "And she spent time with Lorraine Martin before her breakdown."

"Okay," Peter said, "I'll add Meredith to the list." He laughed softly. "And I'll throw some extra money at the contractors to have the house fixed faster. We're quickly running out of room in the apartment."

"You love it," Noah said.

"I do," Peter admitted. "I really do."

  
  



	10. Chapter 10

Derek watched Uncle Peter scrub and wash away the ink on Stiles's left shoulder blade for the third time before he intervened. Accurately copying such an intricate symbol onto a living canvas was near-impossible, especially when the person holding the pen had virtually nil artistic talent.

"Can I try?" Derek asked, willing to step back if Stiles didn't want him involved.

Instead the kid gave him a grateful smile and indicated for Peter to hand over the pen. Peter seemed just as relieved as Stiles.

Derek took his time studying the lines and planning in his mind where to start and how to keep the lines flowing elegantly to match the design in the book.

"Do the buttons need to be here on your chest?" he asked, pointing to the details in the design Stiles had described as the "On" buttons for his spark.

"No," Stiles said, reading over the words that only he could translate. For all Derek knew this book really was written in Ancient Sumerian. It certainly smelled bad enough to be thousands of years old. "I can put them anywhere as long as there's two of them. Or"—he bent closer to the text and nodded his head excitedly—"I can have more than one set. Hey that might be a good idea."

"Yes," Aiden said moving closer. He flinched when he realized he was butting into a conversation he wasn't really a part of, but Derek smiled and nodded for him to continue. "Maybe… um… make an allowance for having your hands bound. Put buttons both front and back. And possibly on each hand if you're um…" Aiden glanced at Derek and then dropped his gaze as if he had something to be ashamed of. "If your hands are above you or stretched apart."

Derek had the awful feeling that Aiden was talking from experience.

"Excellent suggestions," he said, keeping his voice low but sincere. "Can you think of any others?"

Aiden seemed embarrassed but he tried to hide it behind a tough façade. He studied the drawings, following the lines with his eyes. "Can anyone activate your spark by pressing the buttons?"

Stiles frowned, leaned over the pages again, and then shrugged. "It doesn't say no, so I guess that's a yes."

Derek was kind of terrified at how easily Stiles accepted that he could do something as long as no one specifically said he couldn't. Absolute power corrupted absolutely and Derek was as horrified by the idea of a nine-year-old wielding such power as he was relived that it was Stiles—a sweet, innocent kid—in control. He'd heard the stories of the bullying Jackson had subjected him to at school and was kind of amazed that his future mate hadn't just set Jackson on fire already.

Yeah, he should probably talk to Uncle Peter about reinforcing the rune protections on the Hale House once work was completed.

"If others can start your spark, maybe put a set on your pulse point," Aiden said, pointing to his own throat. "That way if you're unconscious and someone checks for a pulse they'll release your spark and give you a chance to protect yourself."

Stiles shrugged and nodded. "Sounds good."

"Is there a time delay?" Derek asked, trying to get his mind back to the design Stiles needed.

"When I press the buttons?"

Derek nodded.

"I could build that in," Stiles said, tracing his finger over a certain part of the design as if he understood each line and swirl in the pattern. "And it would help me to avoid accidentally activating my spark when I'm like scratching or something."

"Okay," Derek said, nodding to the book. "Where do we need to make the changes?"

They spent the next hour going over the design, refining, changing, and reinterpreting what Stiles would need specifically. When they were finally happy, Stiles had a quick shower to wash away the earlier clumsy attempts and then sat perfectly still as Derek started to draw.

It took several more hours but by the time Noah returned to the apartment with Natalie and Lydia in tow, Stiles torso, arms and neck were covered in intricate designs.

"This is amazing," Stiles said, twisting back and forth to see the tattoo in the mirror. "It's almost a shame to have to hide it." He turned back to Derek and gave him a dazzling smile. "Thanks, Der, you did a great job."

Derek could feel his ears growing hot at the affectionate shortening of his name.

"You're welcome," he said, wondering how the hell he was going to keep the kid at arm's length after this.

"Pretty," Amelia said, her eyes wide as she looked at Stiles's design. "Want one."

Ethan rolled his eyes and reached for her hand. "You're supposed to say 'please,' Lala," he corrected gently.

The kid nodded seriously and then turned to Derek. "Want one, peas."

Derek didn't want to break the little girl's heart by saying "no" so soon. They hadn't even been a pack for a full day yet. He turned to Stiles helplessly. His mate just grinned and grabbed his book. He flicked through several pages and pointed to a simple but quite elegant symbol for Derek to draw.

"What is it?" Derek asked, glancing at the twins to gauge their reactions.

Stiles rocked his head side to side, twisting his mouth into a strange, pouty smile. "It's basically a cross between a protection spell and a location spell."

"Who can track it?" Aiden asked aggressively as Ethan lifted his sister into his arms, despite her grumbled protests.

"Oh," Stiles said, seeming to understand why the twins weren't happy with the idea of their new alpha magically micro-chipping their little sister. "It's a um… kind of like a network… or maybe like cellphones. If I draw similar designs on you and Ethan, you'll be able to locate your little sister just by touching where the symbol is, and if I tweak it a little you'll be able to find each other as well. It will only last as long as the ink stays on your skin. A couple days at most."

"Yes!" Amelia said, apparently sensing her brothers' capitulation before anyone else did.

"Fine," Aiden said, the word carrying far more meaning than just a single word. Derek had no doubt this was a test. If the symbol did something other than what Stiles described, Derek was going to be held accountable by his new betas.

He was surprisingly okay with that.

He drew the symbols on each of his betas on their left upper arm, figuring it would take a little bit longer to wash away the ink than on their hands. Amelia cooed at hers and then watched in awe as Derek tweaked the design per Stiles's instructions.

"Okay now," Stiles said, winking at Derek and the twins before gaining Amelia's attention. "This is the most important part and I think I might need some help."

Amelia looked behind her, seeking guidance from her brothers. They both nodded, apparently still trusting Stiles the way they had the night before when they'd thought him only human.

"I help," Amelia said, nodding decisively—well as decisively as any three-year-old could.

"Excellent," Stiles said, rubbing his hands together and grinning like he had mischief planned. "First we need to hold our hands up like this." Amelia held her hands above her head, giggling when Stiles opened his fingers wide and did "jazz hands." She copied as best as she could. "And then we say the magic words."

Amelia waited for Stiles to tell her what they were. When he pretended to forget she giggled again.

"Oh wait," Stiles said, "I remember now. Abra— No, wait, that's not it. Um… Supercala— Nope, still wrong. How about 'Werewolves Rock!'"

"Yes!" Amelia said, apparently approving of Stiles's choice in magic words.

"Okay, we need to do the jazz hands, say the magic words, spin in a circle, and then clap our hands just once. Can you remember all that?"

"Yes," Amelia said, grinning at Stiles like the kid had hung the moon for her.

"Okay," Stiles said. "Here we go. Jazz hands"—he held his hands up and Amelia followed—"magic words. _Werewolves rock!_ " they whisper-shouted together, "turn in a circle and now… Clap!"

The room filled with bright light as the ink on all four children flared bright blue. The pattern on Stiles's chest seemed to writhe and shift before slowly fading away. Aiden's, Ethan's, and Amelia's ink settled into a paler blue than the pen strokes had been, but they remained visible.

Amelia cheered. "We did magic!"

"Yes, we did," Stiles said, dancing in a circle before nearly tripping over his own feet. Derek watched as Aiden and Ethan both pressed a hand to their ink, seeming to relax when they realized it was doing exactly what Stiles had said it would do.

"Where did you get that book?" a rather imperious young voice demanded. Not the least bit intimidated by everything she'd just witnessed, Lydia Martin pushed her way through the crowd of werewolves in the living area. "This isn't even in English. How are you reading this, Stilinski?"

Stiles shrugged, apparently intimidated by one tiny human—well banshee, apparently—when he hadn't taken a backward step faced with so many werewolves.

"This is archaic Latin. Have you been holding out on me, Stilinski?"

"You read archaic Latin?" Stiles asked, almost forgetting to be intimidated.

"I got bored with classic Latin," Lydia said with a raised eyebrow as if the answer should have been obvious.

Yeah, maybe Derek should think a little more seriously about college. He had a feeling it was going to be hell trying to keep up now that he was surrounded by smart-ass kids.

~*~

Peter moved into Noah's arms, hugging his lover close as the kids turned their attention to what movie to watch on DVD. Not many of the movies in Peter's library were child friendly—this apartment had only been his escape when living with a pack that dismissed him as unnecessary had gotten too much to deal with—but he had a few comedies and light-hearted sci-fi classics that would do for now. He made a mental note to order more suitable DVDs and educational games for when they were able to move back to the house.

"With that tracking spell, we may have just found a way to keep Boyd's little sister safe," Noah said with a happy sigh.

Peter agreed. If they were able to thwart Alicia Boyd's abduction, her big brother Vernon probably wouldn't grow into a sad teenager with a family who blamed him and no friends to rely on. And he wouldn't feel the need to become a werewolf.

Not that they had any plans of telling him their secret unless they had to, but it was nice to think they might be able to help someone without dragging them into a more dangerous life.

"Now we just have to figure out how to magically tag a kid without her, her parents, or her protective big brother noticing."

"We'll find a way," Peter said confidently.

"Yeah," Noah agreed. "We usually do."

~*~

He stared at the construction site and ground his teeth together, trying to contain his anger.

The Hale house was being rebuilt.

_It was being rebuilt!_

It was supposed to be a crater in the ground, a pile of smoking ruins, gone completely, not salvageable. She'd promised. She'd looked him in the eye and promised she'd had a plan.

Obviously she'd fucking lied.

  
  



	11. Chapter 11

It felt like an episode of Mission Impossible. Yeah, Noah was showing his age, but he couldn't shake the whole "assemble a crack team of experts to achieve an impossible goal" vibe to it. Of course, in this scenario it was more like Arnie's first day as a Kindergarten Cop.

"At least in this scenario," Peter assured him after he'd expressed his concerns, "you're the big strong cop."

"Yeah, okay," Noah said, laughing softly. "We'll figure it out."

Just getting everyone to the park was a logistical nightmare. Stiles and Amelia were necessary. Amelia to try and befriend Boyd's little sister, Alicia, and Stiles to actually tag her with the tracking spell. But Amelia's big brothers weren't happy to let her out of sight—fair enough after everything they'd been through—and their already over-protective alpha didn't want his whole pack leaving the apartment without him.

"Okay," Noah said, glancing at Derek. "Stiles and I will meet the rest of you at the park."

"See you there," Peter said, leaning in to press a kiss to Noah's lips. "Don't worry so much. Nothing is going to go wrong."

Noah shook his head and tried to laugh. "I really wish you hadn't said that."

~*~

It went wrong.

Of course it went wrong.

"How the fuck does this keep happening?" Noah asked as Peter desperately tried to catch Alicia's scent. "I barely made it in time for Lydia's grandmother. How the hell did we pick the very day Alicia gets abducted?"

"We'll find her," Peter said in a low tone, catching a scent that he needed to follow. "Stay with Boyd. Call it in. Let's follow legal protocol."

"Yeah, okay," Noah said, sounding relieved. Boyd was freaking out and needed the calming presence that Noah always exuded when he was in "deputy sheriff" mode. Officially they were searching for a girl matching the picture Boyd carried in his wallet. Unofficially Peter was tracking the remnants of Boyd's scent on his sister.

He moved quickly, surprised to realize Aiden and Derek were not far behind him. The boys hesitated, glancing at each other when the smell of wolfsbane reached their noses. Peter kept moving toward it, worried now that Alicia hadn't just been a human victim of a human kidnapping.

"Chris?" Peter called when the man's scent reached his nose. He'd almost forgotten that they weren't actually friends in this timeline.

The man turned to face him, his eyes narrowing in apparent recognition. "Hale," he said in a low tone. It wasn't exactly friendly, but it was better than Peter had expected considering the way things had happened in this timeline.

"A young human girl has been abducted," Peter said, rushing over the explanation. "Are you hunting something?"

Chris narrowed his eyes, glancing at Derek and Aiden as they moved closer without actually taking any of his attention away from Peter. He'd clearly decided Peter was the most dangerous of the three of them. Clever man.

He grabbed a two-way radio off his hip.

"It's already got a child," he said into the mic. Peter handed over the photo Boyd had given him. Chris described the girl to whoever was on the other end of the radio and then handed the photo back.

"Can you track her?"

"Yes," Peter said, pushing as much confidence into his tone as possible. "What has her?"

"We're tracking a wendigo. They look human."

"But they don't smell human," Peter said, glad to be able to identify the background scent to Alicia's trail.

"Derek, Aiden, head back to Noah. We'll take it from here."

Derek nodded, clearly unnerved by the presence of his abuser's brother. Aiden hesitated, perhaps confused by Peter's willingness to work with a hunter, but both boys turned and ran back the way they'd come.

"You're either very confident of your abilities," Chris said, leveling a very big gun at Peter's head, "or really fucking stupid."

~*~

Camden knew the warning signs.

"Isaac," he said, turning away from the window and trying not to sound fucking terrified. "Don't you have homework to do?"

"No, I…" Isaac ducked his head, not actually finishing his sentence when he saw the look on Camden's face. Camden knew he looked angry, but it was the expression that worked on Isaac so he'd never tried to explain that it was just a combination of worry for his younger brother and bowel-loosening fear.

"Go to your room and don't come out till I call you for dinner. Understood?"

"Yes," Isaac said, his blond curls bobbing when he nodded fretfully and turned toward his room.

The front door slammed open only moments later, their dad seeming much larger when he was backlit by the sun. Camden wanted to run, he wanted to fight back and not cower, he wanted to ask for help and fucking get it. But life wasn't fair and he would never leave his brother unprotected.

His dad didn't even bother yelling this time. He just went for the gut and kept punching.

And Camden fucking took it.

~*~

"Peter?" Stiles asked telepathically when he saw Derek and Aiden running toward them. The question was echoed out loud by his dad.

"I'm okay," Peter quickly assured him, "just…um talking to an old friend."

"Chris Argent?" Stiles asked, echoing the name Derek had just told Dad.

"Yes," Peter said, not sounding as calm as he was pretending. "We think a wendigo has Alicia. We're tracking it together."

The word almost left Stiles lips before he remembered that Boyd didn't know anything about werewolves or hunters or any of the supernatural stuff that had become Stiles's reality. Wow, his life had changed so much in the past month. It was hard to imagine not knowing _anything_ about this stuff.

Probably the weirdest part was that it felt like Boyd should know about this stuff too.

"Tell Derek not to flash his eyes." Peter sounded like he was running. "We don't want hunters knowing he's the alpha if they don't know already."

"Okay," Stiles said, "be careful."

"Yes, my Alpha," Peter said, his tone almost as affectionate as his dad's when he made him eat vegetables and salad.

~*~

"Alicia?" Peter asked as they came up to a young girl crying in a sandpit. She matched the picture but she cowered away from both of them.

"It dropped the kid," Chris said into his two-way radio, taking a wide arc around the sandpit as he tried to figure out which direction the wendigo had gone. "Offer assistance to anyone who might seem distressed. It's hungry enough that it won't leave the park without grabbing another child."

Peter dialed Noah's number even as he assured Stiles via telepathy that they'd found Boyd's little sister. He repeated the information into the phone.

"We're coming to you," Noah said, already running in their direction. They rounded the corner of the path pretty quickly, suggesting that the wendigo had circled back toward the children before it had dropped Alicia.

Boyd snatched his sister up and held her tight, shaking in reaction now that he knew she was okay.

"Can you still track it?" Chris asked.

"I think so," Peter said, not quite as confident now that the wendigo's scent wasn't overlaid with Boyd's and his sister's. He took a deep breath, filtering through the scents to try and pinpoint that funky, rancid smell unique to wendigos. "This way."

Chris's phone rang. He seemed reluctant to answer it, knowing that Peter would be able to hear both sides of the conversation, but he thumbed over the accept button when he saw the caller ID. Victoria's voice was hysterical and Peter took a little bit of pleasure from that—the woman deserved to feel the fear her innocent victims felt—until Peter realized she was talking about Allison.

"It has my daughter," Chris said through clenched teeth.

  
  



	12. Chapter 12

"We'll find her," Peter assured Chris. He kept his voice low enough that only werewolves would hear. "Derek, tell Noah it has Ally. We're going after her."

"How do you know my daughter's name?" Chris asked, angry enough to have his gun back in his hand. It wasn't currently pointed at Peter, but that was probably only because they were surrounded by innocent, unknowing humans.

"Same way I know your wife is a cold-hearted bitch," Peter said, irrationally annoyed that this man didn't know how many things they'd survived together in a future that would no longer happen. "Do you want to find Ally or not."

Chris nodded. "But if I find out you had anything to do with this…"

Peter just rolled his eyes and turned to follow the scent trail again.

~*~

Stiles couldn't explain the urge to follow Peter but the further away the werewolf got from him, the higher Stiles's anxiety rose.

"Dad, I need to go with him."

"Not without me," Dad said, handing the car keys to Derek. "Head to the parking lot. Keep everyone together. The sheriff's department is on their way."

Derek nodded and turned to hurry Aiden, Ethan, Amelia, Boyd, and Alicia back to the car.

Stiles was so damn grateful to his dad when he simply ran beside him, not asking where or why or even urging him to let the adults handle it.

He trusted Stiles and that felt pretty damn good.

~*~

Isaac had done all of his homework already so he pulled his books out and started revising the stuff that would be on the test they had in a few weeks. It was probably a waste of time. He wasn't very good at school so even if he thought he understood it, chances were that he'd learned it wrong and was just revising the same wrong stuff.

But it was better than leaving his room when Camden was that mad with him.

~*~

Allison was fighting hard, biting against the hand that held her silent, and thrashing with her arms and legs as hard as she could.

But the man just laughed at her. "So much tastier when you're scared," he said, running a clawed hand down the side of her face. She really wanted to tell him how bad his breath was. Yuck.

And then somehow the man was gone. Allison didn't roll away, too scared and too sore to try moving. She couldn't even move her head enough to see what sounded like a vicious fight only a few feet away.

"Ally," Dad said, suddenly there, looming over her but not lifting her off the ground, not hugging her the way she wanted. He just kept saying her name over and over and telling her how sorry he was that he hadn't gotten there sooner.

She tried to tell him it was alright but she was so tired.

She closed her eyes. She'd tell him when she woke up.

~*~

It was like the scene out of a nightmare.

Allison was on the ground, her stomach cut open and her insides hanging out. Noah couldn't tell if any of her organs had been damaged but he knew enough about Wendigos to know the creature had been moments from diving headfirst into Allison's torso and eating his fill.

But even if they got an ambulance to her immediately, Allison was going to bleed out long before that.

"Don't touch her," Stiles said, skidding under Chris's arms to stop him from trying to press his hands against a wound that was too deep and too large. "Chris, you need to trust me." Peter was still fighting, his wolf features very obvious as he fought the wendigo and tried to avoid its wickedly sharp claws. "Dad, help Peter."

Noah watched only long enough to see his son's hands start to glow before he pulled his gun and tried to remember the best way to kill a wendigo.

~*~

Chris had no idea what the fuck was going on, but if this skinny, pale little kid could save his daughter's life, he'd give him almost anything to make that happen.

He nearly changed his mind when the kid did something and his arms and neck were momentarily covered in intricate tattoos, but when his hands started to glow and Allison's skin started to knit back together Chris knew he'd made the right decision.

"Leave a shallow flesh wound," he said when he finally started thinking like a hunter again and not a distraught parent. "We need to explain the blood."

"Good idea," the kid said, glancing up at the fight still going on beside them.

~*~

Peter wasn't strong enough to win against a wendigo so it was a relief to finally hear Dad fire his gun. The sound was awfully loud but it stopped the wendigo from attacking again. It fell to the ground, a single bullet wound through its eye. There didn't seem to be an exit wound which meant the low-caliber bullet had probably bounced around inside the wendigo's hard skull and literally scrambled its brain. Even with its mouth covered in blood its sharp teeth were terrifyingly obvious. Stiles was pretty sure he was gong to be sick.

"How are we going to explain him?" he asked Chris, swallowing back the nausea and trying to concentrate on the girl he was healing. He could sort of feel her organs sliding back into place and that wasn't helping with the sick feeling at all. "He's um…obviously not human."

"He got away," Chris said, confusing Stiles for a moment until he caught on. "Deputy Stilinski fired a single shot. It hit the suspect but wasn't enough of a wound to stop him from running. Peter tried to tackle him but he slipped from his grip. Instead of continuing the pursuit, the off-duty deputy and his friend returned to my daughter's side and rendered first aid that probably saved her life."

Some sort of silent agreement must have passed between the three adults because Chris used his two-way radio to call a couple of people Stiles hadn't realized were in the area—they must have been humans—to collect the wendigo's body. At least that's what Stiles assumed he'd meant. He hadn't used any words that would have incriminated any of them if they were overheard by someone else.

And then Chris reached down and carefully lifted the girl into his arms, quietly assuring her that she was safe and going to be okay.

~*~

Peter was struggling to control the worry he felt at Chris Argent knowing of his alpha's abilities. In the old timeline he'd been the only Argent left alive when he'd learned that Stiles was a spark. Chris had already fallen in love with Melissa and truly become one of the McCall pack long before that. He'd died only a year or so before Stiles had been able to do the spell that reset the timeline.

But this Chris Argent was an unknown. His father, his wife, the men who worked for him were the type of people who'd pursued them across the country, picking off the pack one by one in their relentless effort to capture and control Stiles's abilities.

"You okay?" Peter asked, stopping short of wrapping himself around Noah since he was pretty much covered in blood—both his own and the wendigo's.

"Fucking terrified," he admitted quietly enough for Stiles not to hear.

Peter knew exactly what Noah meant and to a certain extent he shared the emotion, but he also knew his tiny alpha was way stronger now than he'd ever been. He almost pitied anyone who thought they could capture Stiles and try to force him to do anything.

~*~

"Well, now, isn't that interesting."

The man lowered his binoculars and grinned viciously as he dialed a number he didn't dare keep in his phone.

"You were right. The kid is his weakness."

  
  



	13. Chapter 13

"You used my daughter as bait," Chris said as his father stepped into Allison's hospital room.

"It was necessary," he said, no apology, no remorse.

"How was it necessary?" Chris asked, turning toward his father, angry enough to lash out but not stupid enough to try it. His father might avoid the human justice system most of the time, but he wasn't above using it to further his own agenda. He played the kindly old grandpa well enough to fool most people.

"She's vulnerable without training," Gerard said. "Surely you can see that now."

Chris gritted his teeth together and chose his words carefully.

"She wouldn't have been vulnerable if you hadn't put her in the wendigo's path."

"She's always vulnerable," Gerard said in a smug tone. "If you continue to put her in danger one day it may just get her killed."

"Is that a threat?" Chris asked, already knowing the answer.

Gerard laughed and turned to leave the room.

Chris swallowed his anger and turned his mind to what needed to be done.

~*~

"Noah?" Natalie asked the moment he answered her call. "The other night you asked me to keep an extra close eye on a certain student, well this is me unofficially letting you know that he's walking like he's in serious pain but he's refusing to speak to anyone."

"Okay," Noah said, glancing at his watch. "Thanks Nat. I really appreciate the heads up."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she said in a clear indication to keep her out of whatever happened next. She was still trying to adjust to everything that had happened with her daughter and mother-in-law in the past three days. She was not adapting well to the idea of the supernatural, let alone the reality. Noah was just grateful she'd remembered he'd asked her for help with the Lahey boys.

He dialed Peter and told him what had happened.

"They live across the road from the Whittemores," Peter said as they tried to come up with the best approach. "Maybe it's time for Stiles to bring Jackson over to explain everything. Jackson might be able to help us with the Laheys."

"I'm off shift in two-and-a-half hours," Noah said, frustrated all over again at the restrictions being a deputy placed on him. As the sheriff he'd worked pretty much all the time, but he'd also had flexible enough hours to deal with personal and family matters whenever he'd needed. "Maybe I should run for sheriff again."

"I already have the campaign manager on standby," Peter said smugly.

"Of course you do," Noah said, grinning despite trying to be annoyed by his mate knowing him so well. He shook his head and gave in to the inevitable. "Thanks, Peter."

"Anytime, sweetheart," his lover said in his most affectionate and serious tone. "I'll make some calls and let our tiny alpha know the plan with Jackson."

"You should probably let him in on the whole adoption thing while you're at it."

Peter was quiet for several moments and Noah couldn't help but laugh.

"Good luck explaining to Stiles that Jackson is actually his step brother."

"Yeah," Peter said, sounding a little bit shaken. "That's… yeah. I'd forgotten he didn't know that bit."

"It'll be fine," Noah said, "eventually."

And suddenly Noah was kind of glad that he had at least two more hours left on his shift.

~*~

"We need to run," Chris said the moment Victoria stepped back into the room.

"Don't be ridiculous," Victoria said, moving closer to Allison's bed. "It was your idea to move where. We're already established. I've got a decent job. Ally is happy with her new friends." She shook her head. "You're running for sheriff for heaven's sake."

"We can't stay," Chris said, shaking his head as he reached for his wife. He guided her to the far end of the room and lowered his voice.

"How did you and Ally end up in the same park as the wendigo we were hunting?"

Victoria rolled her eyes. "Bad timing," she said.

"When I left yesterday morning you and Ally were on your way to the mall to do some shopping. What changed your mind?"

"It was a beautiful day," Victoria said dismissively.

"Was it Gerard's idea?"

Victoria gave him a calculating look that froze the blood in Chris's veins. "You know hunters are matriarchal," she said, her expression terrifyingly blank.

"It was your idea?" Chris asked, swallowing against the stomach acid rising up his throat.

"It wasn't anyone's idea." Victoria rolled her eyes again. "Allison was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Chris nodded and pretended to be relieved.

"But it was a close call. We really should reconsider training her. She's so very vulnerable without it."

"Of course," Chris said as the reality of his situation finally sank in.

~*~

"Jackson," Stiles said, still reeling from the telepathic conversation he'd just had with Peter. "The um…" Jackson's friends smirked, apparently waiting for the entertainment to begin.

Jackson gave them a furious look and they suddenly had things to do elsewhere. His step-brother—holy fuck, Jackson was Peter's kid!—had impressive skills when it came to scaring people into doing what he wanted.

"You wanted to know," Stiles said nervously. "Do you still want to know?"

Jackson raised an eyebrow as if Stiles was being an idiot.

"Yeah, okay, moving on. My um… Peter—he's my dad's boyfriend, my um… stepdad—he's picking me up after school and he said you could come over and we'll explain everything."

"Today?" Jackson asked.

"Yes?" Stiles said, too nervous to make it not sound like a question.

"Meet me at the gate."

"Yep, okay. Gonna do that," Stiles said, pointing finger-guns at Jackson as he backed away. Yeah, that was so not cool, but he was too nervous to stop himself. "Okidy, dokidy. Later…um…"

Stiles was _so_ relieved when Jackson rolled his eyes and walked away.

~*~

Despite the plan he and Peter had agreed on Noah drove by the Lahey's house on his way home. He wasn't quite sure why. Without an official complaint he couldn't really do anything in a legal sense. He was still in his uniform so even though he was off-duty anything he said or did would be considered the actions of a sheriff's deputy and not those of a concerned citizen.

He was still arguing with himself between staying a little longer and going home before someone reported him for stalking or harassment when Lahey's car turned into the driveway. Noah watched as Lahey stepped out of the car, his movements deliberate and practiced and tightly controlled.

Noah knew just what he was looking at. His father had done exactly the same when he'd had a bad day. And Noah had no doubt what was about to happen.

He checked his gun, grabbed his badge, and slowly stepped out of the car.

~*~

Peter had given it a lot of thought and had decided on the direct approach. Yes, he knew he was a drama queen who loved the shocked expressions people got when he changed into his beta form, but could anyone blame him? Life had so few surprises.

But he didn't get a chance. The moment Jackson climbed into the car and made eye contact with Peter via the rearview mirror Jackson's eyes flashed yellow. Peter let his eyes flash blue in response.

"Finally," Jackson muttered. "Now can someone explain what the hell is going on?"

"Ah…" Peter said, completely caught off guard. "I... am your father."

Stiles giggled most of the way home.

  
  



	14. Chapter 14

"Ally," Chris whispered, shaking his daughter slightly to wake her up. "Ally, we need to go."

"Go where?" Allison asked sleepily. She went to sit up and sucked in a harsh breath when the pain caught her by surprise.

"We're leaving Beacon Hills," Chris whispered, carefully helping his daughter out of bed and onto her feet. "We need to get as far away from Grandpa as we can."

"Cool," Allison said, sounding very relieved, "I know he's your dad and all, but he's got some icky vibes going."

"Yeah," Chris agreed, glad that his daughter was smart enough to notice. "I'm sorry I let him back into your life."

"S'cool," she said, moving carefully. "Now we know for sure that we gave him a fair chance."

Chris nodded in agreement but wondered where his daughter had gotten the concept. She was mature for a ten-year-old but she was still just a kid.

"Is Mom staying?"

"She's not coming with us," Chris confirmed, worried that his daughter was about to protest. But instead Allison just nodded and leaned against him.

"Is it okay to be glad?" she asked. Her eyes were glassy and it was obvious she was trying not to cry.

"It's okay," Chris said. "I feel the same thing." But parental worry wouldn't let him not ask. "Did something happen that I don't know about?"

"The man that attacked me?" Allison said, glancing around the room as if afraid to be overheard. "Mom sent him in my direction."

Shit. Chris forcibly set aside the murderous rage growing inside him to concentrate on getting Allison to safety. Victoria must have been pretty confident Allison would not survive the attack if she'd been careless enough to let their daughter see her send a killer in her direction.

Thank fuck he'd had the guts to ask a new friend for a favor.

"I think we should change our names," Allison said. "I like the name Jessica."

"I do too," Chris agreed. "How does 'Jessica Marie Goldman' sound?"

"I love it," Allison said, her eyes bright with both pain and relief. "Thanks for protecting me, Dad."

"Every time," Chris vowed.

~*~

Noah hesitated on the doorstep to the Lahey home. Coach Lahey was yelling, clearly upset but that wasn't an actual crime. Bursting into a family home because of a few raised voices wouldn't go down well with the current sheriff, even if the guy usually sucked at his job.

But the moment Noah heard a whimper of pain and some glass breaking Noah turned the handle and stepped inside. He had his gun pointed at Lahey's head before the guy could drop Camden's unconscious form back to the floor.

"Put him down… carefully," Noah said, already reaching for his cellphone. Lahey sneered but followed instructions. "Now take three steps back and place your hands on your head."

"He fell," Lahey said, pretending outrage. "Clumsy kid hit his head on the way down. I was about to call an ambulance when you barged in."

Noah didn't bother to respond. He held his ground until Lahey followed instructions and then he dialed emergency with one hand and held the gun pointed at Lahey with the other. Noah identified himself, gave the dispatcher the details, and requested urgent medical assistance. He could already hear the sirens in the distance when he hung up.

The next twenty minutes was a flurry of activity as the EMTs arrived and started their assessment. When they opened Camden's shirt and found extensive old and new bruising Noah very happily placed Lahey in handcuffs.

He was very glad he'd already handed the guy off to the sheriff when the EMTs told him that Camden had internal bleeding. Shooting the kid's father would have been completely unprofessional, but he was so very tempted.

Noah turned around, trying to calm the rage rolling through him when he realized a young, skinny boy with a head full of curls was watching him.

"Did… D–Did my dad really do that?" Isaac asked, twisting his fingers together in worry.

"You never saw your dad hit him?" That was not going to help them win the court case against Lahey.

"Couple times," Isaac admitted, "but not for a long time. Camden always sends me to my room." He blinked a couple of times and gave Noah a really sad frown. "Was he… Was Camden protecting me?"

"Yeah," Noah said, assuming it was true. It explained why Isaac hadn't known of his dad's abusive behavior until after Camden had enlisted.

Although, judging by severity of Camden's condition that may have just been a story Lahey had told people in the old timeline after he'd beaten Camden to death and hidden the body.

"Can I visit him in the hospital?" Isaac asked nervously.

"I'll arrange it," Noah said, wanting to hug the kid and tell him everything was going to be all right. Instead he followed protocol, organized for an on-duty deputy to drive him to the hospital, and followed closely behind in his own car.

But when he learned the extent of Camden's injuries and the chance that he wouldn't survive, Noah did the one thing he knew he shouldn't.

He called his son.

~*~

Even with his enhanced reflexes Peter couldn't avoid the collision. The larger truck shunted his car off the road and into a ditch. The asshole didn't even stop.

"Alpha?" he called telepathically even as he realized the kid was okay. Stiles shook his head and turned to check on Jackson in the back seat. The strange eyes and scales should not have been a surprise considering the circumstances, but it was still a hell of a shock to see that tail again.

"It's okay, Jackson," Stiles said, twisting awkwardly in his seatbelt to hold up his hand. The lizard claws were kind of frightening but Stiles didn't even flinch when Jackson pressed their palms together and breathed out a slow breathe. "That's it, dude. Just stay calm and you'll be back to yourself in no time."

Peter watched on in astonishment when Jackson's features slowly morphed back into human. The kid frowned, but he seemed uninjured and willing to listen, at least for the moment.

"Sit tight," he told the boys, "while I check our location. I'll probably need to call a tow truck. Did anyone see where my phone landed?"

"No need," a man with an annoying British accent said as he ripped the driver's door off its hinges. "Always happy to lend a hand."

~*~

Peter didn't answer his phone.

He never ignored Noah's calls. He always answered even when common sense would dictate otherwise.

And Noah's worry had shifted into overdrive.

Thankfully Derek answered the phone at the apartment.

"Peter isn't answering his phone," Noah said immediately. "Are he and Stiles home yet?"

"Not yet," Derek said, sounding worried. "Weren't they bringing Jackson with them?"

"They were," Noah said, maybe a little bit horrified to remember that Jackson had been a kanima in another life. "Derek, I need your help."

"Anything," the young alpha said confidently.

"Camden Lahey is in hospital. His father beat the hell out of him and he's going to die if we do nothing. Can you come sit with him while I track down Stiles and Peter?"

"Of course," Derek said. Noah could hear the jingle of the keys to the car Peter had given him when he'd passed his drivers test two days ago. "I'll need to bring the pack."

"That's fine," Noah said. "I'd rather keep everyone together."

"We'll be at the hospital in a few minutes."

"Thanks, Alpha," Noah said, not realizing the title he'd used until he'd hung up.

It wasn't as surprising as it probably should have been.

~*~

"So this is the kid?" Deucalion asked, frowning at Peter as if he was crazy. "This scrawny little human is your biggest weakness."

"Don't react," Stiles said directly into Peter's mind. "Let's just see how this plays out."

"Do you even know who this man is?" Peter asked silently, a little bit exasperated to be getting orders from his alpha in a situation like this.

"Nope," Stiles said happily.

Peter refrained from rolling his eyes and just let Deucalion do what he did best—rant like a lunatic.

"Your sister wasn't a bad alpha," Deucalion said in that droll, steady tone he thought made him sound reasonable instead of just coo-coo. "She just lacked vision. She lacked foresight. She lacked—"

"Oh god. We get it, all right? We get it," Jackson said in a bored tone from the backseat. "She was lacking. Can we hurry this up? I have places to be."

"And who are you, young human?" Deucalion asked, his voice laced with amusement as he flashed a smile full of canine teeth in Jackson's directly. Clearly he'd missed the part where Jackson had briefly turned into his kanima form.

"I am Im Patient," Jackson said, rolling his eyes, obviously unimpressed by the way Deucalion was trying to intimidate him. "As in _impatient_ to get home, asshole."

"Kali, if you would be so kind," Deucalion said, taking a step away from the car so that the crazy bitch with the most hideous toenails Peter had ever seen in two timelines stepped up to the window and punched the glass.

~*~

Derek sat in the family waiting room near the post surgical ward with Aiden, Ethan, and Amelia and listened to the soft conversation the doctors were having regarding Camden's condition. They weren't expecting him to survive and if Stiles didn't get there soon it was almost a certainty.

"You could bite him," Ethan said quietly, obviously listening to the same conversation.

Derek hadn't really given any thought to creating betas to join his pack. He knew that to be stable an alpha needed at least three betas but with his cousins Jackson and Malia soon to be in the know as well as Aiden, Ethan, and Amelia being rescued he'd had plenty of choices.

"Would he survive the bite though?" he asked, unsure how the whole thing worked. He'd grown up surrounded by born werewolves and his only experience with a bitten wolf was when he'd held his dying girlfriend in his arms. It wasn't an experience he wanted to repeat, ever.

"He's going to die without it," Aiden said with a slight shrug. "It might at least give him a fighting chance."

"Yeah," Derek agreed, glancing over at where Camden's younger brother had squeezed himself into a corner. The kid had no one else. His mom was gone, his dad was an abusive asshole soon to be charged with child abuse, and the only person who'd ever cared enough to protect him was dying in a hospital bed fifty feet away. "Keep an eye on everyone. I'll be back as quick as I can."

~*~

Noah followed the route Peter would have taken from Stiles's school back to his apartment and almost missed the tell-tale signs of where a car had recently skidded off the road. Despite his worry he stuck to his training, assessing the evidence before rushing down the embankment.

He was glad he did when Deucalion's patronizing voice reached his ears. He almost laughed at the sarcastic way Jackson was sassing him until Kali punched the glass and shattered the window.

Noah braced himself and fired two shots in her direction. They weren't wolfsbane but he knew from Peter that they still hurt enough to be distracting. She looked up and snarled in his direction. She probably would have leaped over the car and landed on him—yeah, he probably could have thought this out a little better—but a thick, flexible tale whipped out of the car and struck her across the throat. Deucalion barely had a moment to react before the same happened to him.

"Well, that was fun," Stiles said, climbing over the gear shift and pushing Peter out the door so he could get out of the damaged car.

Noah reached them just in time to see Jackson in kanima form slither out of the car window. Yeah, that was never not going to be terrifying.

"Hey, Daddio," Stiles said, petting the kanima on the head. "Excellent timing."

"Everyone okay?" Noah asked, barely stopping himself from snatching his son away from such a dangerous creature.

"We're good, aren't we Jax?"

The lizard gave Noah a dead-eyed stare and then turned to rub against Stiles like a cat. Yeah, that was just fucking confusing.

"Is he going to remember any of this?"

"All of it," Stiles confirmed happily. "A kanima needs a friend and I've assured him it's okay to remember." Noah didn't correct his son's misinterpretation of whatever text he'd read. They'd already established in the old timeline that a kanima sought a master, not a friend. "He's only staying in kanima form to make sure his venom doesn't wear off before we decide what to do with these two."

Noah glanced at the prone werewolves and couldn't decide if he was relieved to realize his son hadn't ordered the kanima to kill them or disappointed he and Peter now had to figure out what to do with them.

He chose to be relieved.

The sort of power his son wielded could easily be corrupted and twisted into something horrifying. The fact that Stiles chose non-lethal methods meant he was still thinking the same way he had when he'd been twenty-six in the old timeline.

Noah's phone rang before he could mention Camden's condition. He nearly dropped it when he realized it was Derek.

"I bit him," the alpha said without preamble. "I'm pretty sure it's already working."

"Thanks, Derek," Noah said, gulping air and gagging slightly at the relief that swelled through him.

It had been a hell of a day.

  
  



	15. Chapter 15

"Yes, dear," Peter said into the phone as Noah pressed him for details. "Halwyn was very happy to make room for a couple of juiced up werewolves guilty of killing their entire packs. He is a rather pleasant man considering he's a hellhound. I wonder if that's a species trait. If I remember correctly Jordan Parrish was…is… _will be_ the same type of nice. Intense, dedicated and so nice and gooey sweet just knowing them could give even a werewolf diabetes."

Noah huffed a soft laugh that said he knew exactly what Peter was doing. No he wasn't distracting his lover from the questions he didn't want to answer by mildly insulting people Noah respected. Of course not.

"So they're secured?"

And then some. "Relax, darling. They're not going to be a problem for us any more."

There was no need to mention that Peter had tracked down Julia Baccari. It was almost creepy the way her magic had solidified like a cocoon around her. She was clearly alive and her heart was beating a slow and steady rhythm, but she was so far out of the realms of human medical knowledge that the hospital had been very happy to release the Jane Doe into "specialist" hands. They hadn't even checked what specialty.

Peter had happily moved her into the same room as Deucalion and Kali. The werewolves were sedated with wolfsbane, and thanks to the design of Eichen House, Julia's magic was restricted to the room she was in.

And what happened when the druid woke from her coma wasn't really Peter's concern.

He couldn't be expected to remember the whereabouts of every body.

Speaking of everybody…

"Any idea what happened to Chris and Ally? I only caught the tail end of Victoria's rant." He'd had a trunk full of paralyzed werewolves and had only dropped Stiles, Noah, and Jackson at the hospital's front door before turning the car toward Eichen House. Victoria Argent's voice had been loud enough to hear from three floors away.

"The current theory is that Chris stole Ally out of the hospital overnight. I've watched the surveillance tapes. They left willingly and together around midnight, so I'm pretty sure they're safe."

"It took Victoria that long to notice?"

"Yeah," Noah said. "She was very upset that her child had been abducted. I offered to take her to the sheriff's office to make a statement."

Peter snorted, knowing exactly how the woman would have reacted. She may have felt comfortable yelling and intimidating the hospital staff, but she wouldn't want to get the law involved.

"She declined, but Derek said he overheard a rather furious phone call with a man she apparently blames for their scheme back firing. Something along the lines of 'Well if you hadn't decided to test his loyalty to the cause by sacrificing your own granddaughter none of this would have happened." Noah sighed, sounding sad and tired. "I'm glad Ally survived. I don't think I could have lived knowing someone else had paid the price for us meddling with the timeline."

"Hey," Peter said, wishing he was close enough to hold his mate in his arms. "Ally did better than survive. She and Chris have managed to flee their abusive family legacy and start brand new lives."

"Is there something you want to share with the class?" Noah asked.

"Nope," Peter said happily. "But on an unrelated note Melissa McCall is about to get an offer to work at a hospital far from here that she just can't refuse."

Noah laughed softly. "Thanks, Peter. You always know exactly what to say to make me feel better."

"I'll meet you at home in a couple hours."

"You do know that's not where I live, right?" Noah said, obviously teasing him.

They'd spent the past six nights sleeping in the same bed and Peter couldn't imagine going back to sleeping alone.

"That's true," Peter said, pretending to think about it. "I guess you'll just have to move into the Hale House with me this weekend."

"They've finished the repairs?" Noah asked, sounding surprised. It had only been four-and-a-bit weeks since the fire, but thankfully most of the building hadn't been burned. And well, Peter did have a whole lot of money to throw at contractors.

"There's still work to be done on the east wing but there is more than enough room for the Stilinski-Hale Pack in the west wing."

"I like the sound of that," Noah said.

"What? The moving in part or the finally having enough room part."

"The Stilinski-Hale part," Noah said, sounding a little bit embarrassed, "but the rest is good too."

"Would you consider making it official?"

"Making what official?"

"The Stilinski-Hale part?"

"Is that your half-assed attempt at asking me to marry you?"

"Not romantic enough?" Peter asked, pretending to be confused.

"Aren't there werewolf courting protocols?" Noah asked with a laugh. "I'm sure I read that somewhere."

"Right. Of course," Peter said, barely able to hold the laughter in long enough to speak out loud. "I wasn't sure you'd be impressed with a dead deer on your doorstep but now that I have your permission…"

"Stop," Noah said, laughing easily now. "Yes, I'll marry you. Okay. I'll marry you. Now is that enough to avoid the whole fresh-kill part of our romance?"

"Yeah," Peter said, loving the man even more simply because he could make him smile.

"I think this past month may have been the longest I've ever lived through."

"Me too," Peter said, "I'm glad you're here with me."

"Same," Noah said quietly. "I'll meet you at home."

"Yeah," Peter agreed. "Home."

~*~

"Okay, the good news," Dad said happily as he hung up the phone, "is that your math teacher has left town, so it should be safe to go back to school."

"So she really was a hunter?" Stiles asked.

"Yeah, kid, you ever smell wolfsbane again you tell me or Peter straight away, okay?"

"Will do, Daddio."

He was disappointed that he wouldn't be getting any more interesting math classes, but since he and Lydia had been the only two able to keep up with the pace Ms. Argent had set it was probably a good thing for the rest of the class. And well Stiles was really glad not to be in a classroom with the type of person who thought almost everyone in his family were monsters who needed to be put down even though they'd never done anything wrong. Stiles hadn't even met Malia yet, but he was sure she was a good person too. He couldn't wait to learn everything he could about coyote-shifters.

"You know, I could still take today off and help with the packing."

"No," his dad said, shaking his head in exasperation. "Besides there's very little packing to be done. Most of the furniture is brand new and will be installed by professionals."

"Seriously?" he asked, distracted for a moment by the fact that Peter had bought a mansion's worth of furniture without leaving the apartment.

"Seriously, Stiles," Dad said, sounding even more exasperated. "Now go to school and keep an eye on your step brother."

"Yeah, okay," Stiles agreed. He had a feeling that Jackson was going to take time to adjust to having both a kanima and a werewolf beta shape but their talk last night had gone a long way to smoothing over some problems. Jackson was undoubtedly going to stay a bit of an asshole—like father, life son, Stiles thought, smirking in Peter's direction—but since Stiles didn't mind that particular trait in his friends it would all work out in the end.

School was boring. It was so weird sometimes. Déjà vu kind of weird. There were days when he could have sworn he knew the curriculum better than the teachers. But that was obviously just his imagination. He probably learned differently to the other kids but there was no way he could know something before he learned it.

Except for, you know, all those languages he'd been able to read without knowing how.

"Stiles," Scott said, tripping over his own feet almost as clumsily as Stiles usually did. "I've got amazing news."

"Yeah?" Stiles asked, happy simply because his best friend was too.

"Yeah, my mom got a job offer in Springfield."

"Where Bart Simpson lives?"

"No," Scott said, shaking his head and looking adorably confused. "At least I don't think so. I just know it's a long way from here and we'll get a new house and I'll go to a new school and I'll make new friends."

He faltered on the last word.

"Shit," he said. "Maybe you can come with us."

"I don't think my dad would like that," Stiles said. The weird part was that he wasn't as disappointed as he thought he might be. For a long time it had been just the two of them, but with his dad's new relationship with Peter there were suddenly a whole lot more people in his life.

Jackson chose that moment to walk past and shoved Stiles into a locker, but this time he didn't push as hard.

Eh, it was progress.

"Are you going to be okay?" Scott asked, apparently finally realizing he was leaving his best friend behind.

"Okay with what?" Lydia asked, suddenly standing by Stiles's shoulder as if she stood there and joined their conversations all the time.

"McCall is leaving," Jackson sneered as he walked past again. Lydia rolled her eyes at the boy's tone.

"Leaving?" Lydia asked. "As in going to another school?"

"Ah, yeah," Scott said nervously. Talking to girls wasn't something he'd had a lot of practice with.

"Good riddance," Jackson snarled as he paced past them yet again.

"Oh well," Lydia said as if the conversation was boring her. "Are we still on for a study session tomorrow, Stilinski?"

"Of course," Stiles said. Peter had promised them free reign—well mostly free reign—in the Hale family library. There was no way either of them was missing the chance to learn more about their own abilities and how to use them to keep every body safe.

Scott's jaw was still hanging open when Lydia grabbed Jackson and dragged him away.

"Dude," Scott said, completely stunned. "Lydia Martin! Finally you're putting your ten year plan into action."

Stiles shrugged and didn't disagree. Scott was leaving so he didn't need to know that Stiles new ten year plan was aimed at someone completely different.

"That is so cool," Scott said, trying a little too hard to be enthusiastic. "I'm glad you won't be alone."

"Yeah, Scotty," Stiles said, somehow feeling way older than his best friend. "We're both going to be okay."

"Yeah," Scott agreed before launching into a description of all the games they could play together online even if they were several states apart. He was still talking when Stiles clapped a hand on his shoulder and steered Scott toward the buses.

"Peter is picking me up," he said, turning toward the other direction. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah, okay," Scott said, bobbing his head up and down. "Tomorrow."

His only excuse for not noticing the smell of wolfsbane was that he was totally distracted refining his ten year plan to woo Derek Hale.

~*~

Derek was starting to freak out. He'd known what Peter was doing when he oh-so-casually suggested that Derek collect Stiles from school, but he'd been happy to get out of the house for a little while. His betas were all really great but Derek had grown used to having alone time even before the fire that had fractured the original Hale pack. Sometimes it was just a little bit overwhelming to have so many people looking up to him.

Collecting Stiles from school would not have been Derek's first choice of outing, but it was going to be nearly impossible to avoid his future mate once they were all living under the same roof. He figured he may as well start getting used to it.

But when Stiles didn't come to the car and Derek couldn't see him anywhere he began to worry.

He dialed his uncle's cellphone and refused to feel embarrassed at needing help just picking a kid up from school.

"Uncle Peter, did Stiles say anything about staying at school longer? Like going to the library or something?"

"No," Peter said, already sounding freaked out. "Something's wrong. Stay where you are. We're coming to you."

Derek caught snippets of instructions that sounded more like orders and then the phone went dead. He stayed in the car for thirty seconds more before he decided to at least try and catch his future-mate's scent.

  
  



	16. Chapter 16

Yeah, this wasn't good.

Stiles woke up in the school basement and tried not to panic. He was taped to a chair—with the cheap, generic type of clear sticky tape they used in the classroom; that was just insulting—his arms fixed to the chair's arm rests, his legs taped from ankle to knee. Of course his mouth was taped shut also. He was kind of glad that he hadn't yet reached puberty. Peeling that much sticky tape from his skin was going to be bad enough without giving himself an accidental wax job. He was pretty sure waxing hurt like a bitch. At least that's what he'd heard the office ladies say one day when they hadn't realized he was listening.

He tried to take a few deep breaths through his nose to calm himself down.

"Peter?" he tried telepathically.

"Stiles, thank the goddess," Peter said, sounding half-way to panicked. "We're on our way. Where are you?"

"School basement. Someone drugged me. Do not tell my dad that!"

"Only if I have to," Peter assured him. "Any idea who I need to kill?"

"I'm alone at the moment," Stiles said, "but I can smell wolfsbane the same as Ms. Argent used to wear."

"I doubt she used it as a perfume," Peter said, trying to sound normal but missing by a mile.

"Whatever," Stiles said. "Any chance you'll be here soon?"

"Derek is already at the school. He was there to pick you up, but we've told him to wait in position unless you're in immediate danger."

"Okay," Stiles said, kind of disappointed that his future boyfriend—yeah, he was allowed to imagine that; he had a _ten-year plan_ —wouldn't be smashing through a window and be all badass, super werewolf, but he was also really glad the guy was safe and waiting for backup.

Of course, Stiles was distracted from his daydream when the door opened and an old man stepped into the area. He was all wrinkled and nasty looking and he had to be at least twenty years older than his dad and since Dad was already thirty-something and kind of ancient that made this guy a walking fossil.

Eww.

The worst part was that Stiles had never seen this guy before but somehow he knew exactly who he was.

Yeah, he was tired of that déjà vu feeling.

Maybe he should just roll with it. He'd already managed to lick most of the tape off his face.

"Hello, Gerard. Still suffering from impotence?"

Stiles wasn't even sure what that word meant exactly, but it sure hit the right buttons.

Unfortunately his old age and impotence did not stop his wrinkled, hairy fist from connecting with Stiles's face.

Ow.

~*~

Derek was freaking out.

He knew Stiles was being held captive in the school basement—thank fuck for that telepathic link Stiles and Peter shared—but he had no idea what to do about it. Stiles had already told them he couldn't reach any of his "on buttons" thanks to the way they'd taped his hands to the fucking chair. The moment they were safe, they were reviewing that stupid tattoo design. Stiles was a damn spark, surely he should be able to activate his skills just by wanting them to be active or maybe imagining touching the buttons with his fingers or something. Hell, the kid managed to borrow rare and ancient books without even realizing it. Surely he could have come up with a better way of hiding his spark.

Derek managed to hold onto that train of thought for at least another thirty seconds but manufactured, misplaced anger could only distract him for so long.

Peter and Noah had both told him to wait for backup. He was only just sixteen and an alpha of a growing pack but he wasn't young enough or dumb enough to ignore the advice of people who knew more than he did.

But when he smelled wolfsbane he turned and followed the woman who'd just slipped through the door to the basement. He waited to hear footsteps moving away, texted one word to Peter— _hunters_ —and then quietly followed.

~*~

"Wow," Stiles said, unable to quell his inner smart-ass. "Does it make you feel all manly and stuff to beat on a nine-year-old kid taped to a fucking chair?"

Whoa, he'd never used the "F" word out loud before, but it felt so natural to say it.

He used it again just because.

"Fucking impotent old man," he spat, happy to get blood all over the guy's shirt.

The answering kick to his shin was kind of weird, but… ow.

"Stiles," Peter said telepathically, "for the love of all that is holy, stop antagonizing the man."

"But if he hits me enough times I might be able to fake a heart attack or something and then he'll move to check my pulse and—"

"Don't you fucking dare," Peter said, using the "F" word too. "We're almost there. Derek is close. Just wait for back up."

"You might want to hurry," Stiles said, glancing at the doorway to see Derek with his claws pressed against his math teacher's neck. "Derek is a little closer than you think."

~*~

Derek had no idea what the fuck he was doing, but every moment he hesitated was another moment that wrinkled old man could land another blow. He pressed his claws harder against Victoria Argent's throat and pushed her ahead of him.

"Let him go!" he said, internally cringing at the ridiculousness of such a demand. Had anyone ever given into that demand in any movie he'd ever watched?

"Well, hello Mr. Hale. I was hoping you would join us."

"Really," Derek said, trying to keep the tone flat and un-question-like.

"I have a message for your alpha."

Well that suggested they didn't know Derek had inherited the position. That was something, maybe. Alphas were stronger and faster than betas. It could be handy if they underestimated him.

"I'm listening," he said, trying to sound cool and then cringing at how childish it sounded instead.

"Oh it's more of a visual message," the old man said, shooting straight through the woman Derek was holding. The bullet hit him in the gut and the pain was seriously terrible, but it was the oddly familiar sensation of wolfsbane poisoning that caught him by surprise.

He didn't even realize he'd dragged his claws across the woman's throat until he hit the ground beside her.

~*~

Stiles screamed and struggled with his bonds as Derek hit the ground.

But it was no use. The harder he struggled the more painful the tape seemed to get. He was on the verge of sobbing when a wrinkled old hand patted him on the face. He tried to bite it but thankfully missed. He really didn't want to spend the rest of his life knowing how disgusting that old man tasted.

"Say hi to your dad for me, kid," Gerard said, smiling like it was just another day. "I hear he's running for sheriff." He twisted his lips into a stupid grin that showed his ugly teeth. "Tell him he's got my vote."

"Fuck you," Stiles yelled, unable to think of anything really smart to say.

The old guy just laughed, grabbed his gun, stepped over Ms. Argent, and kicked Derek on the way out.

Stiles may have passed out just a little bit—fucking cowardly head punches that messed up his brain—but he woke to Dad's voice and the very unpleasant sensation of having tape removed from his skin.

"Derek?" Stiles asked, barely able to form the word around his swollen lips.

"He's okay," Dad said, cringing when Derek's roar filled the room. "Or at least, he will be. Peter has to burn the wolfsbane out first so that he can heal."

"Gerard?"

"He got away," Dad said, ripping the tape off Stiles's hand fast, like it was a giant sticky plaster.

"Ow," he said. Fuck being brave. He was nine-years-old and he could cry with his dad there to hold him.

"Emergency services will be here soon," Noah said, smoothing his hand over Stiles's hair. "Is there any serious damage? Can you tell with your spark?"

He was a little bit embarrassed to realize he'd forgotten all about his spark. He nodded weakly but his fingers shook too hard to press them to the right spots, especially when he was curled in his dad's arms and couldn't quite figure out their exact location. He must have made a sound of distress because his dad slid two fingers onto the pulse point on Stiles's neck and held them there until his tattoos flashed.

He used a little bit of his spark to heal the concussion without telling his dad and then shook his head to let his dad know there weren't any injuries that were life-threatening. And then his dad helped him position his fingers to turn his spark back off.

"Hey," Derek said, moving close enough to see Stiles's face. "You okay, kid?"

Stiles didn't even protest the word. He just nodded. Right now he felt his age and he was tired and sore.

"The EMTs just arrived," Derek said to Dad. "I told them Stiles's injuries weren't bad so they're dealing with the teacher first."

"Okay," Dad said, tightening his hold on Stiles just a little. "Get some rest, kiddo. They won't be long."

Stiles took that as permission to pass the fuck out.

Yeah, that might even be his new favorite word.

Fuck.

~*~

Peter was finally able to calm down. It had taken way too many hours but the doctors had finally looked Stiles over, done a couple of x-rays and an MRI on his brain, and declared him well enough to go home.

Derek had almost lost control when Stiles had passed out at the crime scene, but it had been Noah who'd managed to calm him down and get him to go home to his pack. Of course, it hadn't stopped him from calling Peter every five minutes for an update.

Peter supposed he'd be just as frantic if he'd been unable to be by his mate's side when he was so badly injured. He'd just managed to reassure Derek for the fiftieth time when Noah's phone rang. He almost shook his head in amusement before he realized it wasn't Derek on the line.

"She escaped," the voice said on the other end of the line.

"What the hell do you mean she escaped?" Noah asked, glancing around the area. "She had a torn up throat and a massive hole in her gut."

"I don't know what to tell you, Noah," the deputy said apologetically. "She was cuffed to the bed, as is procedure. I was just outside the door, which is also procedure. And then I heard the sound of glass breaking and by the time I got into the room she was gone."

"She was on the fourth floor," Noah said, rubbing a hand over his eyes tiredly. "Did you have a look out the broken window?"

The deputy seemed to hesitate but answered eventually. "I… I did and um… she left a hell of a dent in someone's car, but I watched as she got up and stumbled away."

"Okay," Noah said, taking on his professional, man-in-charge tone of voice—damn that was hot! "Call it in. I'll start a search around the building. Without an accomplice she won't get far."

"Yeah, okay," the young deputy said nervously.

And then Noah turned to give Peter _that_ look.

"I'm suddenly wishing we'd found the time to neutralize the Bersekers at La Iglesia."

Epilogue

"You're late," Peter said, looking as jittery as a spider on a hotplate.

"I am not." Noah laughed and pulled his werewolf into his arms. "I'm right on time."

"Well you were almost late," Peter said, sighing as he snuggled into Noah's embrace. "I'm glad you're home."

"Me too," Noah said, still a little overwhelmed with the size of the pack house, but glad to finally have everyone under one roof. "Is there a reason you're this nervous?"

"I just want everything to be perfect," Peter said, showing a side of him that no one else but Noah was allowed to see.

"It will be perfect, even if it's not," Noah said, leaning in to kiss his mate.

As always, Peter responded affectionately, moaning softly when Noah deepened the kiss.

"We don't have time," Peter said, eventually easing away. "You need to shower and dress and I need to check with the caterers and make sure the flowers are arranged the way I specified. And check on the kids. The Tates and Natalie Martin arrived early to help set up and now Malia and Lydia are glaring at each other. Aiden and Ethan were happy to wear a tie with their suits until Stiles started grumbling and Jackson keeps smirking like an asshole egging him on. And Ethan is giving Jackson those disappointed looks that drive Aiden nuts. Amelia adores the dress we picked for her but last time I checked she was spinning in a circle and claiming to be a space princess on a secret mission. I swear I'm going to ban those movies in this house. I have no idea how we'll explain to our guests how our flower girl ended up with a black eye."

"She's a werewolf," Noah said, moving toward the shower. "She'll heal."

"Well she could still bleed all over her dress. Oh, goddess, why didn't we think to buy two of everything? What if she—"

Noah cut off Peter's worried tirade with another soft kiss.

"Everything will be perfect. Besides, even when it's completely fucked up we find a way through it. It's just what we do."

"Yeah," Peter agreed, giving him a really sweet smile. "We do, don't we?"

Noah grinned, kissed his soon-to-be husband one more time and then stepped into the shower.

"How did Camden's meeting go this morning?" he called over the sound of the water.

"Perfectly, of course," Peter said. "The CPS lady seemed very happy that Camden is willing to take permanent custody of his younger brother. She even complimented him on finding a support network to help him when things get tough." Camden and Isaac had happily moved into a suite of rooms in the Stilinski-Hale pack house when Peter and Derek had assured them they were both part of the pack and welcome to stay.

"So Isaac won't be pushed into foster care?" Noah asked, only to be sure he wasn't just hearing what he wanted to hear.

"Nope, Isaac is and will remain with his big brother as long as nothing catastrophic happens."

"I have no doubt you've already planned for that possibility."

"I have," Peter said in that smug tone Noah so loved. "In fact I have plans for most eventualities, including what I would have done if the newly elected sheriff of Beacon Hills had been late for his own wedding."

Noah laughed and tilted back to wet his hair. He wasn't really sure when he'd started using soap and shampoos specific to his skin type but he wasn't going to complain that his mate was looking after him. He hurried through his routine—ha, he had a routine now, sheesh—and then turned off the water.

Peter was no longer in the bedroom so Noah grabbed the suit he planned to wear and started to get dressed. He fumbled his cufflinks when the door flew open and Peter rushed back in.

"The kids are okay. Well, no blood at least. The caterers are suitably scared of disappointing me, the flowers are the wrong shade—"

"Wow, okay that is bad. We should probably postpone the wedding until the flowers grow the exact shade we want."

Peter grinned but went along with the teasing. "I agree. And I am so glad you're taking this seriously."

"Come here," Noah said, grinning into the kiss that Peter pressed to his lips. He grabbed Peter by his belt loops and carefully pulled him closer. "Remember that discussion we had a couple months ago about werewolf courting rituals?"

"You changed your mind about fresh venison?" Peter asked, seeming confused.

"Not exactly," Noah said. "It's more good timing than good management, really, but there's a case two counties over that crossed my desk this morning that I thought you might be interested in. I brought photos."

"Now you have me intrigued," Peter said, rubbing his hands together gleefully. "Well hand them over."

Noah grinned when he imagined offering such a strange wedding gift to Claudia on their wedding day. Yeah, if this didn't highlight how very different the two people he'd loved enough to marry were, he didn't know what did.

The crime scene photos were gruesome, but Peter didn't even flinch as he examined the first one. It was basically a massacre, blood and entrails and all the things that should be inside the human body spread across the walls and floor and ceiling.

"Werejaguar?" Peter asked.

Noah nodded. "I think so. It looks like our theory regarding Victoria Argent is correct."

Peter winced and moved to the second photo.

It showed the decapitated head of one of the victims.

"Oh my," Peter said, trying to hold onto his bloodthirsty persona as relief obviously swelled through him. "I can't imagine a better wedding gift or a better husband."

"Just to be clear," Noah said, grinning with his lover. "I didn't actually do that myself."

"Still the best wedding gift ever," Peter said, hugging Noah with arms that shook with emotion. "I love you."

"I love you, too," Noah said, holding his mate closer. "Now let's go get married while our kids are still dressed like angels."

Peter took one last look at the photo, smirking at the surprised look on Gerard Argent's face, before tucking it back into the envelope and setting the memories aside.

They had a wedding to get to and a happier future to live.

~*~

Beyond the treeline, an unseen, uninvited guest watched the happy couple get married surrounded by their friends and the family they'd drawn together.

They'd rebuilt the house.

They'd expanded the pack.

They'd protected the town and somehow thwarted every scheme.

Yet none of it mattered, because the balance was always maintained.

And the higher they rose, the harder they'd fall.

Soon. Very soon.

She smiled softly as she turned and walked away.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Holidays Everyone!
> 
> Part 3 Starts in a couple days. :)


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